How to write an AP style press release
A press release is a document of record. It is written in a specific order so an editor can cut it from the bottom up and still have a complete story. Here is the structure we generate, and why each part sits where it does.
Short answer
The headline states the news, in present tense, with the actor first. No colon-stacked puns, no adjectives doing the work a fact should do. The subhead carries the second-most important fact — usually the number, the date, or the market.
Headline and subhead
The headline states the news, in present tense, with the actor first. No colon-stacked puns, no adjectives doing the work a fact should do. The subhead carries the second-most important fact — usually the number, the date, or the market.
Dateline
The dateline is CITY, Month Day, Year — the city the news originates from, not where your office happens to be. It is set apart on its own line before the first paragraph.
The body, in inverted pyramid order
Paragraph one answers who, what, when, where and why. Paragraph two adds context a reader who stopped after paragraph one does not need. Paragraph three onwards is detail, and should be cuttable in reverse order.
Quotes live after the facts, never before them. An unattributed quote is worse than no quote: it signals the release was not reviewed by a human.
Boilerplate
The boilerplate is a fixed paragraph about the company, identical in every release. Two to three sentences: what you do, for whom, and one verifiable fact. It is the one part of the release you write once and reuse.
Press contact
A real named person and a monitored address. A release with a generic contact or an unmonitored inbox is a release nobody follows up on. If you cannot staff the inbox, do not put the address on the release.
Frequently asked
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