A startup’s communications manager writes a press release for a new product launch. She uses AI to help draft it. The result is formatted correctly — headline, dateline, lead paragraph, supporting quotes from the CEO, boilerplate — and covers everything about the product: its features, the problem it solves, the pricing, the availability date. She sends it to her media list. One journalist responds. The rest ignore it. The one journalist who responds writes back to say they would potentially cover the broader trend the product fits into, but not the product launch itself.
The press release was about the company. It was not about anything a journalist’s readers would care about.
Why Company-Centric Press Releases Don’t Get Covered
A press release is not an announcement to the world. It is a pitch to journalists — and journalists have one filter they apply to every press release they receive: “Is there a story here that my readers would find interesting?” A product launch is almost never that story. A product launch is news to the company. It is not news to the journalist’s readers unless it connects to something those readers already care about — a trend they are following, a problem they have heard about, a development in an industry that affects their lives.
The press release that gets covered is the one that leads with the story, not the announcement. The product or company news is the evidence for the story, not the story itself. AI produces company-centric press releases because company-centric information is what the brief contained — product features, CEO quotes, company details. The journalist’s story angle — what this announcement means for the world outside the company — has to be in the brief.
What a Press Release Brief Needs to Include
A press release brief needs the journalist’s perspective before any draft is written. That means: who specifically are the journalists this release is targeting, what publications do they write for, and what stories have they recently covered? What is the larger trend or story that this announcement connects to? And what would the journalist’s readers — the actual audience — find genuinely interesting about this announcement, if not the announcement itself?
The brief should also include the specific news hook: what is new, and what is the implication of that newness beyond the company? A funding announcement is not news. What the funding enables — and why that matters for an industry or audience — might be.
What a Properly Briefed Press Release Request Looks Like
Role: You are helping a communications manager write a press release
for a Series A funding announcement for a healthcare data startup.
The announcement: $12M Series A to expand their clinical trial
matching platform that connects eligible patients with relevant trials.
Target journalists: Healthcare and health tech reporters at outlets
like STAT News, Fierce Healthcare, MedCity News. They cover healthcare
technology adoption, clinical research infrastructure, and patient
access issues.
The news hook (not the funding): Clinical trial enrollment is in
systemic crisis — 80% of trials miss their enrollment timelines, and
the population that does enroll is not representative (mostly white,
mostly urban, mostly already in research hospital networks). This
platform has enrolled 3x more rural patients and 2x more patients
from underrepresented groups than the national trial average. The
funding is evidence of the market's belief this is a real solution to
a real problem.
The journalist's story: Why does clinical trial enrollment fail, and
what does that mean for drug development and patient access? This
funding is the news peg for that story.
CEO quote: Should speak to the patient access problem, not to the
company's growth. Journalists will ignore company growth quotes.
Structure: Lead with the enrollment crisis and the representation
problem. The funding and the platform are in paragraph two. Feature
data on enrollment outcomes before the funding amount.
Do not lead with the dollar amount.The press release from this brief is pitching a story a healthcare journalist can tell their readers — why clinical trials fail to enroll and what that costs patients. The funding announcement is the news peg, not the story.
The Story Is What Gets Covered, Not the Announcement
Every press release that gets covered has a story inside it that a journalist’s readers would find meaningful without knowing or caring about the company making the announcement. Finding that story — the trend, the problem, the implication beyond the company — is the most important thing a communications brief can specify. AI cannot find that story without being pointed at it. The brief is where the journalist’s perspective enters before the draft is written.
For startups and communications teams writing press releases, Briefing Fox structures the brief so the journalist’s news angle and audience perspective are captured before any release is drafted.
Before Your Next Press Release
Before asking AI to write any press release, write down what a journalist’s readers — not the company’s customers — would find genuinely interesting about this announcement. That observation is the story hook and the brief. The release that gets covered leads with that story. The announcement is the evidence.
Try Briefing Fox free at www.briefingfox.com.
Because they announce something the company cares about rather than pitching a story the journalist’s readers would find interesting. A product launch or funding round is news to the company. For it to become a story, it needs to connect to a trend, a problem, or a development that the journalist’s audience already cares about.
An announcement leads with the company news — the product, the funding, the hire. A story leads with why any of that matters to the world beyond the company. The announcement is the evidence for the story. Brief AI with the story first, and the announcement becomes the news peg rather than the headline.
The target journalist and publication, the larger trend or issue the announcement connects to, the specific news hook that would interest the journalist’s readers, and what the journalist’s story would be — separate from the company’s story. These inputs produce a pitch rather than an announcement.
Ask what problem in the world this product or company is evidence of being solvable. A funding announcement is not news. The enrollment crisis it’s funding a solution to might be. Brief AI with that problem — the company news is the supporting detail.