A press release lands in your inbox just after nine. The subject line says FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, and then says EXCLUSIVE, and then says something about "delighted". Somewhere in those four hundred words there might be a story. There might not. Your job is to find out which, quickly, before the newsdesk asks you what you're working on.
None of this requires cynicism. It requires a routine. Here's the one worth building.
First, Work Out What You've Actually Been Sent
Releases arrive in a handful of shapes, and the shape tells you a great deal about what will survive an edit.
- A straight news release. A resignation, a closure, a court outcome, a planning decision, a set of annual results. These carry facts you must check, but the facts are usually there.
- A product or service announcement. The news is commercial rather than public. Ask who outside the company cares, and why today.
- Comment-bait. A brand kindly offering you a spokesperson on a subject in the headlines. Useful if the spokesperson has genuine expertise and something to say. Otherwise it's a quote in search of a story.
- A data drop. Surveys, indices and "research" commissioned by the sender. The numbers may be sound; the framing rarely is.
- Awards, appointments and cheque handovers. These exist mostly as photographs. Occasionally one hides a real story about funding, failure or a change of direction.
- Diary notes. Dates for your forward planning. File these somewhere other than the bin.
Triage It in Sixty Seconds
Before you read the whole thing properly, scan for the details that decide everything:
- Is there a date, a place and a figure that can be checked independently?
- Who is named, and can you reach them today?
- Is it genuinely new, or has it been sitting on the sender's website for a fortnight?
- Is it your patch? A regional release on a national desk usually wastes two people's time.
- Is there anything in the wording the sender would rather you didn't linger over?
If nothing survives that scan, file it and move on. Deleting a release isn't rude. It's triage, and it's the reason you have time for the ones that matter.
Verify Before You Write a Word
A press release is a claim, not a source. Treat the sentences containing numbers as the most suspicious of the lot.
Ring the press officer and ask for the document underneath the announcement: the full report, the committee minutes, the planning application, the dataset. If they can't produce it, that tells you something worth knowing. Then find a second party — the regulator, the council, the trade body, the other company involved, or a competitor willing to offer a contrasting view. Check the sender's own paper trail too, including previous filings and earlier releases that contradict this one.
Ask what the release leaves out. Who else was consulted? What happened last year? Over what period were those figures calculated, and on what basis?
Quotes deserve particular care. A quote in a release has been written, approved and polished by a communications team, and lifting it verbatim is one of the clearest signals that you didn't make a call. Ring the person quoted and ask a question the release didn't answer. If they won't go beyond the scripted line, either say so in the copy or drop the quote altogether.
Where a story involves allegations about named individuals, live proceedings or contested facts, check the relevant reporting restrictions and take advice from your editor or a media lawyer before you publish. That isn't caution for its own sake. It's the difference between a story and a complaint.
Rewrite It, Don't Recycle It
You can always spot a story that began life as a press release. It isn't that the company is mentioned. It's the shape.
What to strip out
Superlatives. The company's own description of itself. The paragraph order that puts the sender's name in the first line and the actual change in the sixth. The executive quote about being delighted, proud or excited. Anything that reads as though it was written to please a board rather than inform a reader.
What to put in
What changes for the reader, and who is affected. What it costs, in plain units, and who pays. When it starts and what happens next. Who disagrees, and why. A real person, on the record, saying something they chose to say. Numbers, converted into something a reader can picture.
Write your own top line before you write the story. One sentence, in your voice, explaining why this matters today. If you can't write that sentence, you have your answer about whether to run it.
The Follow-Up Call That Adds Value
Follow-up is not chasing a freebie. Ten minutes on the phone often produces the story the release buried. Worth asking:
- What would you want a reader to know that isn't in the release?
- Who does this inconvenience, and have you spoken to them?
- When was this decided, and who signed it off?
- Can I see the figures broken down by region, age or year?
- Is anyone else being told today, and when does the embargo lift?
Be explicit about terms. If something is off the record, agree that before they say it, not afterwards. If they ask for copy approval, decline politely — you can offer to check factual details, not the framing. If they offer an exclusive, be clear about what you'll deliver and when.
When to Let It Go
Some releases are not stories, and no amount of rewriting will make them one. The warning signs are consistent: the only news is that a company continues to exist; the only source is the sender; the only quote is about being delighted; the only reason it's being sent is that a competitor got coverage last week; the only evidence is a survey whose sample you can't see.
Spiking it costs you nothing. But the release can still earn its place — as a contact, a date for the diary, or a peg for a bigger piece in three months. Reply briefly, say you're not running it, and keep the relationship intact. The press officer who gets a courteous no today is the one who tips you off in March.
A Workflow You Can Repeat
Put the whole thing in order and it takes about ten minutes per release:
- Read the subject line and first two paragraphs. Classify the release.
- Note the three claims a reader could check.
- Search your own archive and the sender's site for the same story.
- Call for the document behind the headline claim.
- Find one independent voice.
- Write your top line in your own words.
- Reply either way: running, holding, or spiking.
Keep a simple log of who sends you what, and of who answers the phone when you call. Over a year, that list is worth more than any media database you could buy. And remember what the release actually is: a tip, not a draft. Somebody else wrote it to serve somebody else's interests. Your name goes on the finished piece, so the words, the structure and the judgement need to be yours.
Photo: Pavel Danilyuk / Pexels
