ericrisco press-kit
You write the document a journalist receives and the kit they pull from — one formatted press release plus the assembled media kit (boilerplate, fact sheet, bios, asset manifest, contact block) laid out so a busy reporter can lift the story without a second email.
The leverage is form, not enthusiasm. 72% of journalists call the press release the single most useful resource a PR team offers, and 79% use releases to generate story ideas (Cision 2025 State of the Media, 3,000+ journalists / 19 markets). The release is not dead — it just gets skipped when it ignores newsroom convention: no dateline, no end marker, a 900-word company history where a 5-W lede should be, no quotable line, no attached asset. Your job is to make the artifact match the form reporters scan, so the story survives the inbox.
You produce: a .md/.txt press release with a header line and ### marker, a
≤100-word boilerplate, a fact sheet, a multimedia manifest with usage notes, exec
bios, a press-contact block, and the short pitch email that carries it. You do
not source the reporter list, write the brand-voice spec, or wire the send.
Is this news, and which type?
First gate: is this news or an ad? A release earns the form only if a reporter
who does not work for you would care. "We updated our pricing page" is not news.
"We raised $12M to do X" is. If the answer is no, route the user to
../marketing/SKILL.md for an owned-channel launch post instead — do not dress an
ad up as a release.
Then pick the type. The type decides what the lede leads with:
| Release type | The lede leads with |
|---|---|
| Product launch | What it does + who it is for + availability date |
| Funding round | Amount + round + lead investor + what it funds |
| Exec hire | Name + role + the credential that makes it news |
| Partnership | The two parties + what the joint offering enables |
| Product update | The capability that is new + the user problem it ends |
| Milestone | The number + why it is a category signal, not a brag |
| Award | The award + the independent body + what it validates |
| Event | What + when/where + why a reporter should attend |
Per-type lede angles, must-include facts, and a worked lede for each (plus crisis)
live in references/release-types.md. Read it before drafting an unfamiliar type.
The release skeleton
One page, ~300–500 words, inverted pyramid, 2–4-sentence paragraphs, at least one stakeholder quote. Reporters scan for the markers below; missing them signals an amateur and gets the release skipped.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ← header line; or EMBARGOED UNTIL [date time TZ]
Headline That States the News in One Line
Subhead carrying the second-most-important fact
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, June 2, 2026 — [5-W lede: who did what, when, where, why, ← dateline + lede
in ~40 words. The story must stand alone if the reporter reads only this.]
[Body ¶: the next-most-important detail. Inverted pyramid — most newsworthy
first, background last, so an editor can cut from the bottom.]
"[A quote a reporter can paste verbatim — a claim or insight, not filler],"
said [Name, Title, Company].
[Body ¶: supporting detail, one data point, availability/pricing if relevant.]
About [Company] ← boilerplate, ≤100 words, evergreen
[One paragraph: what the company does, for whom, the one credibility fact, URL.]
Media Contact ← contact block; a real name + email + phone
[Name] · [email] · [phone] · [newsroom URL]
### ← end marker (or -30-); signals "release ends here"
Each marker is load-bearing (OhioState/eCampusOntario StratCommWriting). The full
fill-in-the-blanks template is in references/templates.md.
Lede + headline
The lede answers the five W's in the first paragraph, ~40 words, so the story is intact if the reporter reads nothing else (Prowly; ereleases). The headline states the news in one line; the subhead carries the second fact. No clever wordplay that hides what happened.
Bad: Acme Corp, a leader in workflow innovation, is proud to share an exciting
development that reflects its ongoing commitment to its valued customers.
Good: Acme Corp today launched Relay, a tool that cuts invoice approval from days
to minutes, available now for teams of any size at acme.com/relay.
The Bad version makes a reporter hunt for the news and find none. The Good version hands them the 5 W's and a verb. Write the Good version first; everything else is body.
The quote that survives
A quote exists to be pasted into the article. Make it a soundbite — a claim, a stake, or an insight — attributed to a real person with a title. Ban "thrilled to announce" / "excited to announce" / "world-class" / "game-changer": they carry zero information and signal PR boilerplate, so reporters cut them.
Bad: "We are thrilled to announce this game-changing milestone in our journey,"
said the CEO.
Good: "Approval used to be the slowest step in getting paid. Relay removes it
entirely — that is the difference between waiting a week and waiting an
hour," said Dana Ruiz, CEO of Acme Corp.
The Good quote says something only this person would say about this thing. If a quote would work verbatim for any company, delete it and rewrite.
Boilerplate + fact sheet
The boilerplate is the evergreen "About [Company]" paragraph that ends every release — ≤100 words, no adjectives doing the work of facts. Write it once, reuse it. The fact sheet is the skimmable block a reporter copies from:
**Fast facts**
- Founded: 2021 · HQ: San Francisco, CA
- Employees: 48 · Funding: $12M Series A (lead: Northwind Ventures)
- One metric: 4,200 teams; 1.1M invoices processed in 2025
- Site / newsroom: acme.com · acme.com/press
Templates for both are in references/templates.md.
Embargo vs immediate
Default to FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. Use an embargo only when you are giving named
outlets early access to prepare coverage that drops at a set moment. An embargo
is a request, not a contract — it holds only when stated unambiguously and sent
to reporters who have a reason to honor it. Vague or mass-blasted embargoes get
broken (Dynamics of Writing 2024; ereleases).
- Immediate → news is live now, anyone can publish. Use this most of the time.
- Embargo → coordinated drop. Use the exact line, always with a timezone:
EMBARGOED UNTIL 9:00 AM ET, June 9, 2026 — DO NOT PUBLISH BEFORE THIS TIME
Send embargoed releases 1:1 to reporters you have a relationship with, not to a blast list. A list of strangers will break it.
The media kit manifest
A complete media kit is ~9–11 components, hosted as an online newsroom, not emailed as a zip (Prezly; Prowly; Agility PR). Assemble it as a checklist:
- Boilerplate (the ≤100-word "About")
- Fast-fact sheet
- Product/service description
- Leadership bios (2–4 sentences each — template in references)
- Company history / timeline
- High-res photo library
- Logos in multiple formats, including SVG, with usage guidelines
- Case studies / testimonials (the stories themselves are
../case-studies/SKILL.md) - Recent press releases
- Direct press-contact block
Attach assets — a majority of journalists use a PR-supplied image, and releases with multimedia get ~9.7× more views than text-only (Cision; ereleases). Label every asset so a reporter can use it without asking:
acme-relay-hero.jpg · 2400×1600 · Credit: Acme Corp · Free editorial use
acme-logo.svg · vector · Credit: Acme Corp · Do not recolor or crop
dana-ruiz-headshot.jpg · 1200×1200 · Credit: Photo by J. Lin · Editorial use only
Designing the logos/colors themselves is ../brand-identity/SKILL.md, not this skill.
The pitch email that carries it
The release rides in on a short email. 96% of journalists prefer email, ideal length ~100–300 words (best under ~200), and you follow up once only (Cision; Muck Rack via prlab.co). And 86% reject a pitch that is off-beat — so the email names one reason this reporter, on this beat, would care (fact #2).
Subject: [The news in 6–9 words, no "Press Release:" prefix]
Hi [First name],
You covered [specific recent piece] — so [the one-line reason this is your beat].
[1–2 sentences: the news, the number, the stakes.] Full release and high-res
assets below / at acme.com/press.
Happy to set up a call with [exec name] this week.
[Your name] · [email] · [phone]
Personal, beat-relevant, one bump after a few days if no reply — then stop. The
multi-touch cadence to many reporters is ../cold-outreach/SKILL.md; sourcing the
reporter list is lead-gen's job; wiring the actual send is email-connector's.
AI + fact-check discipline
71% of journalists are open to AI-drafted releases, but 72% worry about factual errors and only ~2% strongly favor AI-generated content (Cision). Drafting with AI is accepted — shipping unverified copy is not. Before send, run a human pass on every name, number, date, dollar figure, quote attribution, and embargo time. A wrong figure in a release is a correction request and a burned reporter.
Anti-patterns
| Anti-pattern | Why it kills pickup | Do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Release reads like an ad | No news → reporter rejects on sight | Run the news-or-ad gate; route ads to marketing |
No ### / -30- end marker |
Looks amateur; reporter can't tell it ended | Close the body with the end marker |
| Buried lede / 5 W's in paragraph 4 | Editor cuts before reaching the news | 5-W lede in ~40 words, paragraph one |
| "Thrilled to announce" quote | Zero-information filler; gets cut | A pasteable soundbite only this person says |
| Mass-blasted embargo | Strangers break it; news leaks early | Embargo 1:1 to relationships, with timezone |
| No assets attached / linked | Forfeits the ~9.7× multimedia lift | Manifest with labeled high-res + SVG logo |
| Sent off-beat | 86% reject; instant delete | Name the reporter's beat in the pitch line |
| Unverified name/number/date | Correction request; reporter won't trust next | Human fact-check pass before send |
References + siblings
references/templates.md— full annotated release, boilerplate, fact-sheet, bio, media-kit manifest, and ≤200-word pitch-email templates.references/release-types.md— per-type lede angle, must-include facts, worked lede.scripts/verify.sh— read-only structural check over a drafted release file (header line, dateline, boilerplate,###, contact, filler banlist, length).
Siblings: ../cold-outreach/SKILL.md (pitch cadence) · ../brand-voice/SKILL.md
(tone spec) · ../brand-identity/SKILL.md (logos/colors) · ../case-studies/SKILL.md
(customer stories) · ../marketing/SKILL.md (owned launch) ·
../social-publisher/SKILL.md (posting to your own channels). The reporter list is
lead-gen's and the actual send is email-connector's.