How a Press Release Actually Works
A press release that gets picked up is not a request for attention. It is a finished news story a busy editor can run with almost no editing. So you don't write it as the applicant asking to be covered — you write it as the reporter already covering you.
Write as the reporter, not the applicant
Every release is written in the voice of a reporter covering the story: third person, plain newsroom register, publishable as-is. You do the reporter's job for them — answer every obvious question and hand over finished copy — because a release that makes an editor pick up the phone is a release that gets deleted.
The structure — inverted pyramid
News is built as an inverted pyramid: the most important facts sit at the top, and everything below is cuttable. An editor trims from the bottom up, and trimming should never remove the news. Every release uses the same twelve elements, in the same order:
- Headline — present tense, twelve words or fewer, states the news plainly. No hype, no puns fighting with clarity.
- Subhead (optional, one line) — expands the headline with the strongest secondary fact.
- Dateline — CITY, State — Month Day, Year — opening the first paragraph.
- Paragraph 1 — the lede (25–40 words): who, what, when, where in one breath. A reader who stops here already knows the news.
- Paragraph 2 — the nut graf: why this matters and why now — context, stakes, the larger story. Facts only.
- Paragraph 3 — first quote: the filmmaker or principal, one to three sentences. Opinion, emotion, and color live only inside quotes — never in body copy. The quote should sound like a person, not a brochure.
- Paragraph 4 — supporting facts: platforms, dates, runtime, credits, availability, numbers — anything a reporter can cut and paste into their own piece.
- Paragraph 5 (optional) — a second quote in a different voice, or a forward-looking detail.
- Closing paragraph — where: where to watch, learn, or attend, stated plainly with the link.
- Boilerplate — "About [Filmmaker/Company]": two or three reusable, factual sentences.
- Contact block — name, email, site (phone if provided).
- "###", centered — the end mark editors expect.
Body length runs 300–400 words — journalists prefer under 400. Every paragraph has to survive the cut test.
The honesty rules
These are non-negotiable, because a release that overreaches once is a source an editor never trusts again.
- No invented facts. Every claim traces to something real in the project record — no invented awards, press, sales, audience numbers, or credentials. If the record doesn't hold it, the release doesn't say it.
- Banned hype words in body copy: revolutionary, groundbreaking, game-changing, cutting-edge, unprecedented, disruptive, world-class, visionary, one-of-a-kind, taking the industry by storm, and any superlative without a named source. They're permitted only inside a human quote — and discouraged even there.
- One story per release. A second piece of news is a second release, not a second paragraph.
- No exclamation marks anywhere. Numbers, dates, and titles follow consistent news style.
- AI is a production detail, not the headline — unless the chosen angle is explicitly the craft story, and even then it's reported ("made using…"), never hyped.
How ShotBible's press tools apply the doctrine
The press release drafter is wired to this doctrine, not to marketing habit. It writes from your approved project record — never inventing facts, never re-asking what it already knows. The draft renders in the editor with its parts labeled — Lede · Nut graf · Quote · Facts · Where · Boilerplate — so you learn the form while you edit it.
Then the code checks the draft: it verifies every structural section is present and in order, holds the body to news length, scans the body copy for banned hype words, confirms there's a real attributed quote and a where-to-watch link, and enforces the headline rules. Anything that fails is surfaced to you as a flag — it never silently passes.