The most popular advice about formatting a press release is also the least complete: follow one standard template and send it everywhere. That worked when the release was primarily a document passed between fax machines, inboxes, and newsroom desks. It doesn't account for a headline cut short in Google News, a lead compressed in a mobile social preview, or a PDF that never gets opened. The durable principles still matter. The modern press release format traces back to Ivy Lee in 1906, after a fatal Pennsylvania Railroad accident, and its core structure remains recognizable today: headline, dateline, lead, body, quote,
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