Press Kit Agent Skill

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.