Press Release and PR Writing Prompts

A press release is a strange piece of writing. It is meant to inform a busy journalist in 30 seconds, deliver a quotable line they can lift verbatim, and leave them with everything they need to write the story without calling you back. AI can write surprisingly good ones — if your prompt teaches it the format journalists actually read.

1. Introduction

Most AI-written press releases fail in the same way: they read like marketing copy with a date stamp on top. Journalists can spot this in two seconds and bin it. A real press release follows the inverted pyramid, opens with the news (not the brand), and provides quotable executive lines that read like a human said them. This tutorial gives you a prompt template that produces releases that journalists will actually read past the first paragraph.

2. The Concept Explained

Press releases follow the inverted pyramid — the most important information first, the least important last. The first paragraph (the "lede") must answer the five questions a journalist needs to file the story: Who, What, When, Where, Why. If the journalist reads only the first paragraph, they should still have the entire story.

The second hallmark is quotability. Every release includes one or two executive quotes. The quote must sound like a real human said it — opinionated, specific, and short enough to fit in a news article. "We are excited to announce…" is not a quote. "This is the first time anyone has built this for under £100" is a quote. Journalists lift quotes that sound human.

Think of a release as a structured handover document. You are giving the journalist a half-written article. The less work they have to do to turn your release into a published story, the more likely they are to publish it.

3. The Problem Without This Technique

Write a press release for our new product launch.

4. The Solution

Act as a former technology reporter who now works
in B2B PR. Write a press release following the
inverted pyramid format.

News: A Bristol-based startup called "FieldNote"
has raised £4.2M Series A funding to expand its
voice-note transcription tool for field service
engineers. Lead investor: NorthLight Ventures.

Date: 18 November (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE)

Spokesperson: Priya Shah, CEO of FieldNote.
She is candid, technical, and slightly contrarian.
She does not use marketing language.

Required structure:
1. Headline (≤ 100 characters, news-first, no brand-led).
2. Subhead (one sentence with the most newsworthy
   detail not in the headline).
3. Lede (≤ 60 words, answers Who/What/When/Where/Why).
4. Quote 1 from Priya (2 sentences, opinionated and
   specific — not "we are excited" language). It
   should reference a concrete problem in field
   service work.
5. One paragraph of context (the problem the product
   solves, written for non-technical readers).
6. Quote 2 from the lead investor (1–2 sentences,
   on why they backed the company specifically).
7. Boilerplate paragraph (3 sentences about FieldNote).
8. Contact line: press@fieldnote.example with a
   placeholder name.

Hard rules:
- Never use the words "excited", "thrilled",
  "delighted", "revolutionary", "game-changing".
- All quotes must sound spoken — contractions OK.
- No statistics unless given (none are given here).
- British English throughout.

5. Step-by-Step Breakdown

1. State the news, not the brand. The first sentence of the prompt should describe what happened, not who is announcing it.
2. Brief the spokesperson's personality. AI will write generic quotes unless you tell it the human behind them. Two adjectives plus a "they do not use" phrase works wonders.
3. Enforce the inverted pyramid. Headline, subhead, lede, quote 1, context, quote 2, boilerplate, contact — list it in order so AI cannot rearrange.
4. Ban the dead words. "Excited", "thrilled", "delighted", "revolutionary" — these are press-release tells. Ban them by name.
5. Make quotes sound spoken. Ask for contractions and a specific reference to a concrete problem. Marketing-speak quotes go unused.
6. Provide every fact. AI must not invent funding numbers, dates, or names. If you do not have a stat, do not include it.

Tip: After the release is drafted, ask AI: "Now write a 60-word media pitch to send to a tech reporter alongside the full release." The pitch is what gets the journalist to open the release — and a separate, shorter prompt produces a much sharper pitch than asking for both at once.

6. Practice Exercises

Critique this release as a senior tech reporter — what would I bin, what would I quote, and what would I follow up on?

7. Key Takeaways