By Disrupt PR | 2025 Bulldog PR Awards Gold Winner, Best Boutique Agency
When I was a reporter at NBC and CBS, I got somewhere between 200 and 400 pitches a week. I opened maybe twenty. And a big chunk of that pile was press releases.
I can tell you exactly how most of them died. Subject line, first sentence, delete. Three seconds, tops (sometimes less!).
The frustrating part is that a lot of those releases were announcing perfectly good news. The news just wasn’t in the first sentence, or it was buried under three lines about how “thrilled” the CEO was. The reporter never found it, because they never got that far.
So here’s how to write a press release the way a reporter actually reads one, from someone who spent years on the receiving end. And then, because the writing is honestly the easy part, what to do with it once it’s done.
The short answer
A press release is a short, formal announcement (usually 300 to 500 words) that gives journalists the key facts about something newsworthy: who it’s about, what happened, when, where, and why it matters. The standard format is a headline, a dateline, a lead paragraph that covers the whole story, supporting details, one or two quotes, a short company description called the boilerplate, and media contact information.
If you only remember three things:
- Lead with the news, not the company
- Put the whole story in the first paragraph
- Keep it to one page
And one more: the release is the easy part. What you do with it (who sees it first, on what terms, and from whom) is what actually earns coverage.
Before you write anything: is it actually news?
A press release is only worth writing if there’s something to announce. Reporters care about change, not existence.
The things that tend to qualify: a funding round, a product launch, a major partnership or customer, a key executive hire, original data or research, a clinical or regulatory milestone, an award, an acquisition. What usually doesn’t: a new website, a small feature update, or an anniversary with nothing real behind it.
Here’s the quick test I’d use. If a reporter’s editor asked “why are we covering this today?”, could you answer in one sentence? If not, hold off. A release with no news in it is worse than no release at all, because it teaches reporters that your emails are skippable.
Step 1: Figure out what the news actually is
This sounds obvious, but it’s where most releases go sideways. Before you open a doc, grab a sticky note and write down the one thing that happened. Not three things. One. “We raised $12M.” “We launched in 20 states.” That’s your headline and your first line, and everything else in the release is just there to back it up.
The classic mistake is opening with the company. “Acme, a leading provider of innovative solutions…” I’d stop reading right there. I didn’t know you yet, and you hadn’t given me a reason to care.
Step 2: Fix the headline
You get about three seconds. Keep it short (ten or twelve words is plenty), use an active verb, add a real number if you have one, and leave the adjectives at home. Here’s the same announcement written twice (fictional company, but it’s a pattern I saw constantly):
Weak: Acme Health Is Thrilled to Announce an Exciting New Partnership
Better: Acme Health Raises $12M to Bring At-Home Lab Testing to 20 New States
The first one could be about literally anything. The second tells me what happened, how big it is, and what beat it belongs on, and I haven’t even reached the first sentence yet.
Step 3: Put the whole story up top
Journalism school drills this in on day one: the inverted pyramid. Biggest stuff first, details after. In a press release that means your first paragraph (two or three sentences, no more) has to carry who, what, when, where, and why anyone should care. If a reporter quits after that paragraph, they should still be able to write the story.
Start with the dateline, which is just city, state, and date (AUSTIN, Texas, Month Day, Year), then dive straight in.
Step 4: Add the details, then one quote that doesn’t sound like a robot
After the lead, stack in the supporting stuff: numbers, how it works, who it helps. Then one quote. Two if you absolutely must.
Can we talk about quotes for a second? “We’re thrilled to announce…” is not a quote. Nobody talks like that. A good one gives the reporter something the facts can’t, like an opinion, a reason, or a stake in the outcome. Read it out loud. If you’d be embarrassed saying it to a friend over dinner, rewrite it.
Step 5: The boring but necessary bits
Last stretch. Add a short “About [Company]” paragraph (two or three sentences on what you do, who you serve, and one proof point). Then a media contact with an actual human’s name, email, and phone number. Not info@, please. Finish with ### on its own line, which is the old-school way of telling a reporter “that’s all, folks.”
The format, as a template
Copy this structure and fill in the brackets:
[HEADLINE: specific, active, under 12 words]
[Optional subheadline: one line adding the key detail][CITY, STATE] ([Month Day, Year]) – [Lead paragraph: who did what, when, where, and why it matters, in 2 to 3 sentences.]
[Second paragraph: the most important supporting detail, with a number if you have one.]
“[Quote that adds an opinion or context a reporter can actually use,]” said [Name], [Title] at [Company].
[Third paragraph: background, how it works, availability, next steps.]
About [Company]
[Two to three sentences: what you do, who you serve, one proof point.]Media Contact:
[Name]
[Email]
[Phone]###
What gets a press release ignored
- Burying the news. Starting with company history instead of what just happened.
- Buzzwords. “Innovative,” “cutting-edge,” “game-changing,” and “leading provider” tell a reporter nothing.
- Length. Anything past one page is a signal that nobody edited it.
- Attachments. Paste the release into the body of the email. Reporters skip unopened attachments.
- Blasting the same release to everyone. A reporter who covers fintech does not want your biotech news.
7 no-brainer hacks most people never think of
None of these cost a dime, and most take under five minutes. My guess is your last release skipped most of them.
- Write the subject line like a headline. It’s all a reporter sees before deciding. “Press Release:” at the start is a wasted line and an easy delete, so put the news and the number up front.
- Send a link to a folder with photos, logos, headshots, and any data. A reporter on deadline is not going to email you back asking for a headshot, they’ll just run someone else’s story. And test the link in an incognito window, because “request access” is where good pitches go to die.
- Hand them a number they can quote. A stat plus the source. A quote with a number in it gets reused. Without one, it usually doesn’t.
- Open with a line about something they actually wrote recently. One sentence, specific, not gushing: “Your piece on [topic] last week is why I thought you’d want this first.” It tells them this isn’t a blast, and honestly it’s rare enough that it works.
- Say when your CEO is free. “Available for interviews Wednesday and Thursday” gives a reporter a reason to act today instead of someday. Put a cell number on it too, and aim for Tuesday through Thursday mornings in their time zone.
- Have a newsroom page ready on your own site the moment the news goes live: the release, the assets, your contact info. Reporters can fact check in ten seconds, and you get the search (and AI search) benefit for free.
- Follow up once, with something new. “Just bumping this up” is a delete. A fresh data point, a new quote, or a real deadline isn’t. Then let it go.
The press release is the easy part. Here’s what you do with it.
Everything above, you can do yourself in an afternoon. I mean that. The writing is the easy part. The hard part, and the part that decides whether anyone ever reads it, is what happens after you hit save.
Embargoes: giving reporters the news early
An embargo is an agreement that a reporter can have your news ahead of time, but won’t publish until a set date and time. You send a pitch that says something like “embargoed until Tuesday at 9am ET,” and if the reporter agrees, they can interview, research, and write in advance. The story goes live the moment the embargo lifts, usually the same minute your release does.
Reporters like it because it gives them time to do a better story instead of a rushed rewrite. You like it because you get depth, and often several outlets running on day one.
Here’s the catch most people miss: an embargo only exists if the reporter agrees to it before they see the news. Send an “embargoed” release cold and all you’ve done is hand your news to someone who never agreed to wait.
Exclusives: who gets it first
An exclusive means one outlet gets the story before anyone else, usually in exchange for running it on announcement day. A strong exclusive at a top outlet tends to be worth more than a dozen scattered mentions, because it sets the story, gets cited, and gives every other reporter something to follow.
The tricky part is sequencing. You can only offer an exclusive to one outlet at a time. Pitch the wrong one first and you’ve spent your best card (and your first impression). Give a reporter a day or two to answer, then move to the next outlet on your list. Once someone says yes, nobody else gets it until it runs.
Who actually gets the call?
Here’s what I’d tell any founder about a reporter’s inbox: as a reporter, the emails I opened almost always came from names I already knew. A cold email from a stranger is competing with 200 to 400 others that week. Relationships don’t guarantee coverage, but they decide whether your email gets read at all, and whether a reporter will agree to an embargo from you or give you the benefit of the doubt on a tight deadline.
Where the wire fits in
Wire services (Business Wire, PR Newswire, and GlobeNewswire are the big ones) distribute your release across a broad network of news sites and databases. That helps with visibility, syndication, and having an official, searchable record. It’s paid, with pricing that scales with reach. What it rarely does on its own is get a reporter to write a story.
Direct pitching is what actually earns coverage. Reporters respond to relevance and a reason to care, not to a wire notification. (If pitching is the part you’re unsure about, here’s how to get press coverage as a former journalist sees it.) Pair it with a solid media kit so anyone who bites has everything they need in one place.
What a launch-day sequence looks like
Every announcement is a little different, but the shape usually goes something like this:
- A few weeks out, you build the list. Who’s covered your space lately? What did they write last week? Read it.
- About a week before, pitch your top choice an exclusive (short email, key facts right in the body).
- Give them a day or two. If they pass, or go quiet, move to number two on the list.
- When someone says yes, lock in the embargo time in writing and offer your spokesperson for interviews.
- On announcement day, the release goes live at the embargo time, everyone else gets it (with the assets), and your spokesperson stays glued to their phone.
- Over the next few days, circle back to the outlets that didn’t bite with a fresh angle, and try to turn one placement into more.
The part where most DIY announcements fall apart
None of this is secret. It’s just a lot of moving pieces, all of them time-sensitive, and you only get one shot at it, because you can only announce something for the first time once.
Doing it well looks like this:
- You know which reporters cover your space right now, and what they wrote last week.
- You have relationships, so your email gets opened and your embargo actually gets respected.
- Someone decides who gets the exclusive and in what order (without burning the best card).
- Launch day brings its own chaos: quote requests that need an answer in an hour, spokesperson prep, last-minute fact checks.
- And then the follow-up on day two, when you find out whether it landed.
You can absolutely write the release yourself. Most founders who try the rest alone end up with a well-written release that sits on the wire and… goes nowhere. If you’ve got news coming that’s worth more than a blog post, that’s the moment to bring in someone who already has the relationships and has run this sequence before. (Curious what that costs? Here’s what a PR agency should actually cost.)
How we do this at Disrupt PR
This is the part of the job my team does every single week, so let me pull back the curtain a little.
Before anything goes out, we build the reporter list and decide who gets what. Who gets the exclusive? Who gets an embargoed heads-up? Who just gets the release when it goes live? That’s a judgment call, and it comes down to who has actually covered your space lately, not who has the biggest logo.
Then we do the outreach. One-to-one, written for a specific reporter, never a blast. When someone says yes, we get the embargo terms nailed down in writing so there’s zero confusion about the exact time the story can run.
We also prep your spokesperson (who the reporter is, what they’ll probably ask, the two or three messages to land), because a great exclusive can still fall flat if the interview goes sideways. Then on announcement day we stay on it: quote requests, fact checks, the “can you jump on a call at 2?” scramble. Once the story runs, we follow up with every outlet that didn’t bite and try to turn one placement into several.
It’s a lot of work, most of it invisible, and it’s the difference between an announcement that gets covered and one that doesn’t. (Here’s more on how our media relations work.) If you’ve got news coming, book a call and we’ll tell you honestly which of these your announcement actually needs.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a press release be?
Aim for 300 to 500 words, or one page. Reporters skim, and a shorter release is easier to quote from.
What is the standard press release format?
Headline, optional subheadline, dateline, lead paragraph, supporting details, one or two quotes, boilerplate, media contact, and an end mark (###).
Do press releases still work?
On their own, rarely. A release works best as the supporting document behind a personal pitch, as an official record for investors and customers, and for search visibility. The pitch is what gets it read.
What is a press embargo?
An embargo is an agreement between you and a reporter that they can have your news early but won’t publish until a set date and time. It only works if the reporter agrees to it before you share the details.
What is a press exclusive?
An exclusive means one outlet gets your story before anyone else, usually in exchange for publishing it on announcement day. You can only offer one to a single outlet at a time.
What’s the difference between a press release and a pitch?
A press release is the formal announcement document. A pitch is a short, personalized email to one reporter explaining why this story matters to their audience. Most successful campaigns use both.
Do I need a wire service?
Not always. Wire distribution is useful for broad visibility and official records, but it doesn’t replace pitching the reporters who actually cover your space.
Should I hire a PR agency to send my press release?
For significant news like a funding round, a launch, or a major partnership, usually yes. Writing the release is the easy part. The reporter relationships, the sequencing of exclusives and embargoes, and the day-of follow-through are where an agency earns its fee. For smaller updates, a well-written release on your own newsroom page may be enough.
Does Disrupt PR handle exclusives and embargoes?
Yes. We choose which outlet gets the exclusive, pitch it one-to-one, agree on embargo terms with the reporter in writing, prep your spokesperson, and manage announcement day, including follow-up with the outlets that didn’t cover it at first.
The honest bottom line
A press release isn’t a strategy. It’s a document. The thing that earns coverage is a real story in front of the right reporter, at the right time, on the right terms.
Write it so a reporter gets the news in the first sentence, and you’ve already beaten most of what lands in their inbox. Then do the part most people skip: decide who sees it first.
Disrupt PR is the 2025 Bulldog PR Awards Gold Winner for Best Boutique Agency, the only PR awards program judged exclusively by working journalists. Founded by former Emmy-nominated broadcast journalist Marin Richardson, our team earns press coverage in top-tier outlets including The New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, CNN, BBC, and Good Morning America for growth-stage companies, funded startups, and established brands. Have news coming? We’ll tell you honestly whether it’s worth a release, who should see it first, and how to sequence it. See how our press release service works or book a discovery call.
