Daily Junction.mobi portalMarketing · January 7, 2025 · Harper Quinn · 5 min
A press release is a short, factual announcement written to help a journalist tell your story. This guide covers what makes news, the standard structure, and the habits that get a release opened rather than deleted.
Most press releases are never read past the subject line, and the reason is almost always the same: they were written to flatter the business rather than to help the journalist. A press release is not a megaphone for your marketing. It is a working document handed to a busy reporter who has a deadline, a sceptical editor and a hundred other emails. Write it with that person in mind and your odds improve dramatically. This guide explains how.
A press release is a short, factual announcement written to give journalists the information they need to cover a story. It is not an advert, and it is not an opinion piece. Its purpose is to present something genuinely newsworthy — a launch, a milestone, an appointment, an event, a piece of original research — in a form a reporter can quickly understand, trust and use.
That distinction matters. An advert says "buy this". A press release says "here is something happening that your readers might find interesting, and here are the facts". The more it reads like news rather than promotion, the more likely it is to become actual coverage. Press releases are one tool within the wider craft covered in our guide to earned, owned and paid media, where coverage you earn from credible outlets carries more weight than anything you can buy.
Before writing a word, ask the hardest question honestly: is this actually news? The most common mistake is sending a release about something only the business cares about. "We've redesigned our website" or "we now offer extended opening hours" rarely interests anyone outside the company.
Things that genuinely tend to make news include:
If you cannot find an angle a stranger would care about, the answer is not to dress it up; it is to wait for a better story. A clear sense of your audience and message — the same thinking behind share of voice and being heard in your market — helps you judge what is genuinely worth announcing.
Journalists expect a recognisable format, and meeting that expectation makes their job easier. The guiding principle is the inverted pyramid: the most important information first, then supporting detail in descending order of importance, so the story still makes sense even if it is cut short.
| Element | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Headline | A short, specific, factual summary of the news |
| Opening paragraph | The who, what, when, where and why it matters |
| Body paragraphs | Supporting detail, context and relevant facts |
| Quote | A human voice giving insight or reaction, attributed by name and role |
| Boilerplate | A short standard paragraph describing the organisation |
| Contact details | A named person, email and phone number for follow-up |
Two parts deserve special care. The headline must be specific and honest — "Local bakery creates 12 jobs with new factory" beats "Exciting news from our bakery". And the opening paragraph must stand alone: a journalist who reads only those few sentences should still grasp the entire story and why it matters.
Style is not decoration here; it signals whether you understand the trade.
A perfect release still fails if it lands in the wrong inbox. Distribution is half the job.
A press release that gets read starts with a genuine story, leads with the news in the first paragraph, follows the familiar inverted-pyramid structure, and stays to roughly a page of clear, accurate, third-person writing with a real quote and proper contact details. Then it goes to the right journalists, personally and at the right moment. Remember the core shift in mindset: you are not promoting your business, you are doing a reporter's research for them. Make their job easy, tell the truth, and a humble one-page document can earn you the kind of credible coverage no advert can buy.
![[View image]](/img/how-to-write-a-press-release.jpg){kind=link}