A field guide to press release language that stopped working decades ago, and the one test that tells you whether yours has any news in it.

Somewhere around 1994, a sentence got trapped in amber.

"XYZ Company is pleased to announce."

It has been preserved perfectly ever since, passed from template to template, appearing in thousands of documents every single day, and I am fairly confident that in all of recorded history no reporter has ever read it and thought: at last.

I am not making fun of anyone who has used it. I have written it myself, more than once, usually at the end of a long day when the news was thin and the client wanted something out by Thursday. It comes out of your fingers automatically, which is exactly the problem. Automatic writing produces automatic reading, and automatic reading is another way of saying delete.

So here is the fossil record, with love, followed by what to do instead.

The Fossil Record

"Is pleased to announce." Nobody cares how you feel about your news. They care whether it is news. Also worth noting: your pleasure is not in dispute. You would not be sending it if you were upset about it.

"Leading provider of innovative solutions." This phrase has been used by a plumbing supplier, a hedge fund, and a dog grooming franchise, all in the same week, and it described none of them. If it fits everyone, it identifies no one.

"State of the art facility." Every facility is state of the art on the day it opens and never again, and no reader has changed their behavior over this sentence in thirty years.

"Revolutionary." Reporters read this word as a warning label. The genuinely revolutionary things do not need the adjective, because the facts underneath it are doing the work.

The CEO quote no human being has ever said out loud. You know the one. "We are excited to bring this best in class offering to our valued customers as part of our ongoing commitment to excellence." Read it aloud in a normal speaking voice. It cannot be done. Nobody talks like this, which means it is not a quote, it is a paragraph wearing quotation marks.

The boilerplate longer than the news. Four sentences of actual information, followed by six paragraphs about your founding year, your mission, your values and your awards. The news is the appetizer and the company history is the entree, which is backwards.

The confidentiality notice on a press release. A document whose entire purpose is public distribution, ending with a warning that it may contain privileged information. This one always makes me smile.

"Strategic partnership." With no explanation of what the two companies will actually do together. A partnership where nothing changes for anybody is a lunch, not news.

Who You Are Actually Writing For

Here is the part that reframes everything.

Your release is not being read by a customer, an investor, or your competitor. It is being read, for about nine seconds, by a person with three hundred unread emails, a deadline today, and an editor who has already asked twice what they are filing.

That person is scanning for six things, in this order.

Is there news here. Why now. Who does it affect besides the company sending it. Can I verify it. Is there a human being I can call today. Are there usable images.

Everything in your release that does not serve one of those six questions is furniture. It is not neutral furniture either, because every extra sentence pushes the answer further down the screen.

Jennifer has spent nearly thirty years on the relationship side of this, and she will tell you the same thing from a different angle. The release almost never gets the story. The release is the reference document that supports the story. What gets the story is a person a reporter already trusts sending a short note that says here is why this matters to your readers this week. The release just has to be accurate, fast to scan, and free of anything that makes a busy person roll their eyes.

The Competitor Test

One test, and it takes four minutes.

Print your last press release. Go through it sentence by sentence, and cross out every sentence that your closest competitor could have published word for word, changing only the company name.

Then read what is left.

Most of the time you are left with two or three sentences, and those sentences are your actual news. Everything else was ritual.

This is the same test I recommend for an About page, and it works here for the same reason. Language that fits everybody communicates nothing about anybody. If your release survives the crossing out with a real number, a real date, a real name, and a real consequence, you have news. If it does not, you do not have a press release problem. You have a nothing-happened problem, and no amount of writing fixes that.

What to Write Instead

Lead with the news in plain words. What happened, who it affects, and the most specific number you have. Not "expands its offerings" but "adds evening and Saturday appointments after a nine month waitlist."

Answer why now in the second paragraph. Reporters need a reason this is a story today rather than last March. A season, a data point, a rule change, a local trend, a milestone.

Make the quote sound like a person. Interview your own executive for ten minutes and use their actual words, including the slightly imperfect ones. A real quote has a specific detail in it. If the quote could be attributed to any leader at any company, cut it and try again.

Put the proof where it can be checked. Dates, figures, credentials, availability, location, price if you have one. Vague claims make a reporter's fact-checking harder, and harder means skipped.

Give them a human. A name, a mobile number that gets answered, and an honest window of availability. "Media contact" with a general info address is a closed door.

Have images ready before you send. High resolution, correctly captioned, with the names spelled right and permission cleared. The number of stories that die because nobody could produce a usable photo by four o'clock would break your heart.

Then cut the boilerplate in half. Three sentences. Who you are, what you do, where. Your awards can live on your website.

Here's What You Can Do Now

Open the last release you sent. Cross out every sentence a competitor could have published unchanged. Count the words left standing.

If there are fewer than fifty, do not send another release yet. Go find the number, the person, or the consequence that makes the thing actually newsworthy, and build the next one around that instead.

Then read your CEO quote out loud, in your normal voice, to another human in the room. If either of you laughs, you have found the fossil.

The good news is that this is one of the easiest fixes in communications. Reporters are not asking for brilliance. They are asking for news, delivered by someone who respects the nine seconds they have.

Building genuine connections takes time, but it's the foundation of PR that actually works. At JNR Communications, we combine Jennifer's nearly 30 years of media relationships with my strategic networking expertise to help businesses in beauty, wellness, and medical aesthetics achieve visibility that generates real results. Let's talk about your goals.

📞 (818)357-7286 | ✉️ Greg@JNRcommunications.com

Greg Kaufman is a Partner at JNR Communications, a Las Vegas-based PR agency specializing in medical aesthetics, beauty, wellness, and home service industries. With decades of experience in healthcare technology education, international business development, and professional networking, Greg brings a unique relationship-focused perspective to PR and social media strategy. He believes that the most effective communications begin with genuine connection, and that "relationship infrastructure" is the foundation of sustainable business growth. Connect with Greg on LinkedIn.