Press releases are one of the most misunderstood tools in business communications. Every year, millions of them get distributed, and the vast majority are ignored by every journalist who receives them. That does not mean press releases are useless. It means most of them are done wrong.
Here is how to write a press release that actually serves its purpose, and an honest assessment of when a press release is the right tool and when it is not.
Do Press Releases Still Matter?
Let us get this out of the way first. Press releases are not what they used to be. In the era before email and the internet, a press release was the primary way a company communicated news to the media. That is no longer the case. Journalists today are drowning in press releases, and most of them go straight to the trash.
That said, press releases still serve a few important functions. They create a formal record of an announcement that can be referenced and cited. They provide a structured format that journalists can pull quotes and facts from quickly when they are on deadline. And when distributed through the right channels, they can appear in news aggregators and industry databases, which has some SEO and visibility value.
Where press releases fail is when they are used as a substitute for actual media outreach. Distributing a press release is not the same as pitching a journalist. A press release sitting on a wire service is passive. A personalized pitch to a journalist who covers your space is active. The press release supports the pitch, but it does not replace it.
The Structure That Works
A good press release follows a proven structure, and deviating from it rarely helps. Start with a clear, specific headline that communicates the actual news. Not "Company X Announces Exciting New Partnership" but "Company X Partners with Company Y to Bring [Specific Thing] to [Specific Market]." The headline should tell a journalist in one line what happened and why it might matter.
The first paragraph should answer the core questions: who, what, when, where, and why. A journalist who reads only the first paragraph should have enough information to decide whether this story is relevant to their beat. Do not bury the news under three paragraphs of company background. Lead with the news.
The second and third paragraphs provide context and detail. Why does this matter? Who does it affect? What problem does it solve? Include a quote from a company executive or relevant stakeholder that adds perspective rather than just restating what the first paragraph already said. A good quote provides an insight or opinion that the factual paragraphs do not.
Include a brief "About" section at the end with your company's background. Keep it to two or three sentences. And include clear contact information for a real person who can respond to journalist inquiries quickly. Nothing kills a story faster than a journalist who cannot reach anyone for comment.
Common Mistakes
The biggest mistake is writing a press release about something that is not actually newsworthy. Before you write a single word, ask yourself honestly: would a journalist who covers this space care about this announcement? If the answer is no, a press release is not going to change that.
The second biggest mistake is promotional language. A press release should read like a news story, not an advertisement. Words like "revolutionary," "game-changing," "industry-leading," and "best-in-class" are the fastest way to get your press release deleted without being read. Journalists see through marketing language instantly, and it signals that the content is not trustworthy.
Avoid making the press release too long. One page is ideal. Two pages is the maximum. Journalists do not have time to read a five-page document to find the story. If you cannot communicate the news in 400 to 600 words, you need to refine your message.
When to Write One and When Not To
A press release makes sense for genuinely significant business news. Major partnerships, significant funding rounds, product launches that represent a real market shift, executive appointments at large companies, and major milestone announcements are all appropriate. A press release does not make sense for minor updates, routine business activities, or things that are only interesting to your own employees.
If you are debating whether something warrants a press release, it probably does not. Save your press releases for announcements that genuinely matter, and you will build credibility with the journalists and outlets that receive them. If you send a press release every week about minor developments, you train journalists to ignore everything you send.
The more effective approach for ongoing media presence is building direct relationships with journalists through the strategies we outline in our press coverage guide. The press release supports those relationships by giving journalists a formatted source for the facts when you do have real news.
If you need help crafting press releases that actually generate coverage, or if you want to develop a broader media strategy that goes beyond press releases, our press placement service covers the full spectrum. You may also want to read our guide on press release distribution.
Related Resources
- How to get press coverage — Build real media relationships beyond press releases
- Press release distribution — Get your releases to journalists and outlets
- Press placement services — We handle media strategy and outreach
What the Research Says About Journalists and Press Releases
The gap between how companies think press releases work and how journalists actually use them is significant. Muck Rack's State of Journalism report found that the majority of journalists receive more than 50 pitches per week, and a large share of them say fewer than a quarter of those pitches are relevant to their beat. That context matters when you're deciding how much effort to put into distribution versus targeting. A press release sent to 500 journalists who don't cover your space is not a media strategy. It's noise.
The Cision State of the Media Report consistently shows that journalists rank relevance and accuracy as their top criteria when evaluating pitches and press materials. Promotional language, missing contact information, and vague headlines rank among the top reasons releases get deleted immediately. These aren't abstract preferences. They reflect a real scarcity of time inside shrinking newsrooms. Pew Research's newspaper fact sheet documents that U.S. newspaper newsroom employment dropped roughly 57 percent between 2008 and 2020. Fewer reporters covering more ground means the bar for what earns attention has gone up, not down.
Resources from the Poynter Institute and the Columbia Journalism Review offer practical guidance on what makes source materials useful to working reporters. Both emphasize clarity, speed, and specificity. A quote that a reporter can actually use, a statistic they don't have to verify independently, and a contact who picks up the phone. Those three things will do more for your media coverage than any distribution platform.
What This Looks Like in Practice
A Boston-based health tech startup was preparing to announce a Series A raise of $8.2 million. Their initial draft press release opened with two paragraphs of company history before mentioning the funding amount. We restructured it so the headline read "[Company] Raises $8.2M Series A to Expand Remote Patient Monitoring Across New England" and moved the funding figure, lead investor name, and planned use of capital into the first 80 words. Three trade reporters who covered digital health picked up the story within 48 hours of the pitch going out, and one regional business journal ran it as a standalone feature. The wire distribution generated 14 additional pickups on local news aggregators, which contributed meaningfully to their branded search results over the following 60 days.
A Philadelphia-based commercial contractor wanted to announce a new partnership with a regional materials supplier. The original press release described it as a "groundbreaking strategic alliance poised to transform construction supply chains." That kind of language signals immediately that the content isn't credible. We rewrote it to focus on the specific outcome: faster project timelines on jobs over $2 million in the Delaware Valley market, with a named quote from the contractor's VP of Operations explaining what the deal meant for their subcontractor relationships. The rewritten version was picked up by two construction trade publications and the Philadelphia Business Journal's online brief section. Zero wire distribution was used. Targeted outreach to seven reporters did the work.
By the Numbers: What the Research Actually Shows
The case for writing press releases carefully is backed by data that most communications teams don't quote. Muck Rack's State of Journalism report found that 48 percent of journalists say irrelevant pitches and press releases are their single biggest frustration with PR professionals. That's not a complaint about volume. It's a complaint about targeting and relevance. A well-structured release sent to the right reporter on the right beat performs completely differently than the same release blasted to a generic list of 5,000 contacts.
The picture gets sharper when you look at newsroom capacity. Pew Research's newspaper fact sheet documents that U.S. newspaper newsroom employment fell by 57 percent between 2008 and 2020. Fewer reporters are covering more beats, which means the bar for what earns attention has gone up, not down. Journalists working at reduced staff levels don't have time to untangle a poorly organized release and hunt for the actual news buried in paragraph four. The releases that get used are the ones that hand the journalist the story structure they'd need to write the piece themselves.
Columbia Journalism Review has documented the growing pressure on reporters to produce multiple stories per day across digital formats, which changes what a press release needs to do. It's no longer just a tip. For a stretched journalist on deadline, a well-sourced release with a real quote, verifiable figures, and a named contact who actually picks up the phone can become the scaffolding for a publishable story within the hour. That's the use case worth optimizing for. The releases that treat promotional language as a shortcut are eliminated before that evaluation ever happens. Specific numbers, named parties, and a single clear claim in the headline are what survive the first five seconds of a journalist's attention.
All of this data points to the same conclusion for anyone writing a press release today. The format isn't dying, but the margin for sloppiness is gone. Reporters are fewer, faster, and more selective. A release that respects their time by leading with real news, cutting promotional language, and including a responsive contact can still open doors that a cold pitch alone won't. The standard has simply moved from passable to precise.
Another Client Situation
A commercial real estate firm based in Phoenix, Arizona came to us after distributing four press releases over six months through a paid wire service. Each release had been written internally, ran between 800 and 1,000 words, and announced partnership expansions that were genuine business developments but framed almost entirely in promotional language. Combined, the four releases generated two pickup items in regional aggregators and zero journalist inquiries. We rewrote their next release covering a new anchor tenant signing. The rewrite cut the word count to 520 words, moved the tenant name and square footage into the headline, stripped every adjective that didn't carry a fact, and added a direct quote from the firm's managing partner that explained market conditions rather than praising the deal. That single release was picked up by the Phoenix Business Journal and referenced in a broader regional commercial real estate roundup within 10 days of distribution. The difference wasn't the news value. The news value was comparable to the prior four releases. The difference was structure and discipline.