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Free Guide

How to Write a Press Release

The standard structure editors actually expect, a worked example, and the mistakes that get releases ignored — no PR agency required.

What a press release actually is

A press release is a short, factual announcement written in a specific, standardized format — not a blog post, not an ad, and not a story about your feelings on the matter. It exists to give a journalist, editor, or reader everything they need to understand what happened, in the first few seconds of reading.

That standard format matters more than people expect. Editors skim hundreds of releases; one that doesn't follow the expected shape reads as amateur and gets skipped, regardless of how good the actual news is.

The 7-part structure

Every press release that gets taken seriously follows this same shape, in this order:

1
Headline
One sentence, stated as fact, not a teaser. "Casa Verde Named Best New Restaurant" — not "You Won't Believe What Happened to This Local Restaurant."
2
Dateline
City, state, and date, right before the first sentence — e.g. "FERNDALE, MI, June 16, 2026 —". This is a wire-service convention every editor expects to see.
3
Lead paragraph
Who, what, when, where, and why — covered in the very first sentence. Don't build up to the news; state it immediately.
4
Body paragraphs
Supporting detail and context — why this matters, what led to it, what's next. Two to three short paragraphs is standard.
5
Quote
At least one quote from someone at the company — an owner, founder, or spokesperson. Adds a human voice and gives writers something to pull directly.
6
Boilerplate ("About" section)
A short standard paragraph describing the company — the same one, reused on every release you ever send out.
7
Media contact
Name, email, and phone number for whoever a journalist should reach out to with questions.

See it put together

Here's what all seven parts look like combined into a real, finished release:

Worked Example
Ferndale's Casa Verde Named Best New Restaurant by Michigan Food & Wine Magazine
See the full formatted example on our homepage →

The mistakes that get releases ignored

Watch out for these:
  • Burying the news. If the first sentence doesn't say what happened, most readers won't get to the second one.
  • Skipping the dateline. It's a small detail, but its absence is one of the fastest "this wasn't written by someone who knows the format" signals.
  • No quote at all. A release with zero human voice reads like a form letter, not news.
  • Writing it like an ad. Superlatives like "revolutionary" or "game-changing" read as marketing copy, not news — let the facts carry the weight.
  • Forgetting contact information. If a journalist has a question and can't reach anyone, the story usually just doesn't get written.
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Questions about writing a release

A headline, a dateline (city, state, date), a lead paragraph covering who/what/when/where/why, supporting body paragraphs, at least one quote, a boilerplate "About" section, and media contact information.
400 to 600 words is the standard range — long enough to cover the essentials with one supporting quote, short enough that an editor can read the whole thing in under a minute.
No. The format is well-established and learnable. Most small businesses and independent operators can write a solid release themselves by following the standard structure above.
Burying the actual news. State exactly what happened in the first sentence — don't build up to it. Editors and readers decide whether to keep reading in that first line.