# How to Write a Press Release a Desk Editor Would File URL: https://impressify.org/journal/how-to-write-a-press-release Type: blog Locale: en Published: 2026-10-24 Updated: 2026-10-26 --- > How to write a press release in five parts, with a before and after lede, a cut list for empty adjectives and a skeleton you can copy tonight. Desk 3, 11:24 pm. A press release lands in the queue with a 41-word headline, a quote from a "visionary CEO" in paragraph one, and the actual news (a $4M seed round) buried in paragraph six. It gets deleted in about four seconds. If you want to know how to write a press release that survives the first four seconds, the answer is the order of the facts: news first, proof second, quote third, boilerplate last. Everything else is decoration. This is the cut we would make on your draft. We write pitch decks for a living, which means we read a lot of founder prose that was never edited by anyone who has been edited. ![Typewriter with a blank sheet loaded, a red pencil and a folded newspaper on a wooden desk](https://fdzlnqpwsaniezitwiuw.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/cms-media/impressify/2026-10/b0405b-i1.webp) ## What is a press release actually for? A press release is not an announcement. It is a pre-written news item that a busy reporter can lift from without rewriting your life story. That distinction changes every choice you make. An announcement says "we are thrilled." A news item says "Acme raised $4 million to automate invoice matching for 300 mid-size manufacturers." The first is about your feelings. The second is about a fact a stranger can verify. So before you type a word, answer one question: what changed? A funding round, a product that ships on a date, a hire with a track record, a number that moved. If you cannot name the change in one sentence, you do not have a press release. You have a blog post, and a blog post is fine. Publish that instead. Skip the release if the only news is that you exist. Reporters do not cover existence. ## The five parts, in the order a reporter reads them A conventional release has five working parts. Reporters scan them in this order, and so should you when you write them. - **Headline.** Ten to fifteen words, verb in the present tense, the company name in it. - **Dateline and lede.** City, date, then one or two sentences that answer who, what, when, where and why. - **Body.** Two to four short paragraphs of supporting facts, in descending order of importance. - **Quote.** One or two, from a named person, saying something a human would say. - **Boilerplate and contact.** Three sentences about the company, then a real name, an email and a phone number. Close with "###" or "END" if you want to look like you have done this before. It signals that no page is missing. The whole thing should fit on one page, roughly 300 to 500 words. Anything longer and you are filing a white paper. ## How do you write a lede a reporter will not delete? The lede is the first sentence, and it carries most of the release. Treat it like the first line of a wire story: the news, the subject, the number. Here is a before and after, the kind we run on pitch decks every week. **Before:** "Acme, a leading provider of innovative AI-powered solutions, is excited to announce the launch of its new platform, designed to transform how businesses handle finance." **After:** "Acme, a Chicago startup, today launched software that matches invoices to purchase orders in under two seconds, cutting manual review at its first 12 customers by 71 percent." The first version has 28 words and zero facts. The second has 28 words and four: where, what, how fast, and a measured result. Same length. Different job. A lede template you can steal: **[Company], a [place] [category] company, today [verb] [specific thing] that [measurable effect] for [named audience].** Fill every bracket with something checkable. If a bracket resists, you have found the hole in your story. ## Why do most press releases get ignored? Because they are sent to the wrong person, in the wrong order, at the wrong length. Not because the writing is not clever enough. The numbers are unflattering. An aggregated 2026 study built on Propel data, about 400,000 pitches sent to roughly 4,000 reporters, [found that reporters respond to 3.43 percent of the pitches they receive](https://everything-pr.com/epr-research-and-5w-release-the-pr-pitch-response-rate-study-2026). Pitches under 150 words got a 5.89 percent response rate; pitches over 500 words got 1.46 percent. Treat the exact decimals with caution, since the data comes from PR software vendors and the page itself discloses its publisher's agency ties. The direction, though, matches every editor's inbox: shorter wins. ![Editor's hand striking out a long paragraph with a red pencil on a printed page](https://fdzlnqpwsaniezitwiuw.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/cms-media/impressify/2026-10/37411b-i2.webp) The cause is not mysterious. A reporter on a deadline reads a subject line, then a lede, then decides. Your second paragraph is for the minority who survive. ## Which sentences should you cut first? Cut the adjectives you cannot prove. "Innovative," "leading," "cutting-edge," "seamless," "world-class." A reporter reads those as a signal that the facts are thin. Here is the cut list we apply to every draft, in order: - Any sentence that starts with "We are thrilled" or "We are excited." - Any claim of being "the first" or "the only" without a date and a source. - Any quote that could have been said by any CEO about any product. - Any paragraph that explains what your industry is. The quote deserves special mention. A good quote adds something the facts cannot: an opinion, a reason, a stake. "This is a game-changer for our customers" is not a quote. "Our first customer was closing the books in nine days. Now it is four, and the controller stopped coming in on Saturdays" is a quote. Tribune Tower does not publish bullet points, and neither does a reporter who is rewriting your release. Write in sentences a journalist could paste. ## What should you do before you hit send? Do three things, and do them in this order. First, pick the reporter. Not "tech press." A named person who wrote about your category in the last 60 days. Read their last three pieces. If you cannot explain in one sentence why this story belongs on their beat, send it to someone else. Second, write the email, not just the release. The email is 80 to 120 words: a subject line that carries the news, two sentences on why this reporter, and the release pasted below, not attached. Attachments get ignored by humans and quarantined by filters. Third, check the facts a reporter will check: spelling of every name, the numbers against your own dashboard, and the date. One wrong figure and a reporter stops trusting the rest of the page. If you want one tool that covers the writing and the sending, Prowly publishes releases and keeps a media database in one place, with published pricing, which is rare in this category. Worth it if you send more than a handful of releases a quarter. Skip it if you have one announcement a year; a clean email and a spreadsheet do the same job. ## Do you need a wire service? Usually not. A wire service puts your release in front of databases, aggregators and, in some cases, search results. It does not put it in front of a reporter who will care. Distribution is a different thing from attention. Use a wire when you need the record: a public company with disclosure rules, a regulated announcement, a launch where you want an indexed, timestamped copy. For a seed-stage startup announcing a round, direct emails to ten well-chosen reporters beat a wire blast to ten thousand. If you do go the paid route, know what you are buying. Cision is Chicago-based and bundles a journalist database, monitoring and links to PR Newswire for distribution, but there is no public price list; every plan is a custom annual quote. Muck Rack sits at the other end: strong on the journalist database, quote-only, and in third-party data (Vendr, 80 purchases) a median around $13,000 a year. That is a real budget line, not a startup experiment. Meltwater leans toward monitoring and analytics, which matters after the release goes out, when you want to know who picked it up. Our verdict: if you cannot name ten reporters by hand, a database will not fix that. It will give you ten thousand names and the same four-second delete. ![Stack of envelopes beside a laptop and sticky notes on a cluttered desk](https://fdzlnqpwsaniezitwiuw.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/cms-media/impressify/2026-10/e13780-i3.webp) ## Where does an AI draft help, and where does it embarrass you? An AI tool is good at the part nobody enjoys: getting a structured first draft out of your notes in two minutes. Feed it the facts, the quote you actually said and the boilerplate, and ask for the five parts in order. It is bad at the part that matters. Left alone, it will open with "is thrilled to announce," pad the lede to 40 words, and write a quote that sounds like a brochure. Every one of those is a deletable offence on Desk 3. So use it as a typist, not an editor. Run its draft through the cut list above, replace every unproven adjective with a number, and read the lede out loud. If you run out of breath, it is too long. Whatever tool does the drafting, the order of operations stays human: facts first, tool second, edit third. ## What does a finished release look like? Here is the skeleton, with the filler removed. Copy it. **Headline:** Acme Raises $4 Million to Match Invoices to Purchase Orders in Two Seconds **Dateline and lede:** CHICAGO, October 24, 2026 - Acme, a Chicago startup, today announced $4 million in seed funding led by [named investor] to expand software that matches invoices to purchase orders in under two seconds. The product cut manual review by 71 percent at its first 12 customers. **Body:** Two paragraphs. One on the customer result, with the number and the customer's name if they agreed. One on what the money buys, with a date for the next milestone. **Quote:** One named person, one concrete opinion, under 40 words. **Boilerplate:** Three sentences. What Acme does, who it serves, where it is based. **Contact:** A person, an email, a phone number that gets picked up. Notice what is missing: the founder's origin story, a market-size claim and the word "revolutionary." If a reporter wants the origin story, they will ask, and that is the best possible outcome. ## Should you write one at all, or send a pitch instead? For many announcements, a three-line pitch email with the key facts beats a formal release. Cision's 2024 data, as cited in industry coverage, says journalists still say press releases and announcements are what they most want from PR teams, so the format is not dead. But it is a container, not a strategy. Write the release when you have hard news and need a citable record. Write the pitch when you have an angle and a specific reporter. Do both when the news is real, because the release is the reference and the email is the invitation. The test is short. Could a stranger repeat your lede to a friend in one breath? If yes, file it. If no, rewrite the first sentence until they can. Filed. Printer's Row, 23 h 17. ## FAQ ### How long should a press release be? One page, roughly 300 to 500 words. The lede carries the news in under 40 words, the body adds two to four short paragraphs, and the boilerplate stays at three sentences. ### What are the parts of a press release? Headline, dateline and lede, body, quote, then boilerplate and contact details. Reporters read them in that order, so write them in that order too. ### Do you need a wire service to distribute a press release? Usually not. A wire gives you a timestamped record and database reach, not reporter attention. For a funding round, ten direct emails to well-chosen reporters beat a mass blast. ### What makes a good press release headline? Ten to fifteen words, present tense, the company name and one checkable fact. If the headline could be about any company in your category, it is too vague. ### Can AI write a press release? It can draft the structure from your notes in minutes. It tends to pad the lede and write brochure quotes, so edit its output against a cut list and replace each unproven adjective with a number. ### When should you send a pitch instead of a press release? When you have an angle for one specific reporter but no hard news that needs a citable record. A three-line email can outperform a formal release in that case.