Rewriting a press release until a reporter would actually use it

Rewriting a press release until a reporter would actually use it
A client handed us 600 words of corporate fog announcing a partnership. We rebuilt it in five passes, and it got picked up by two trades.

Pass one: we deleted every adjective. "Industry-leading," "innovative," "seamless" — gone. Forty words lighter already.
Pass two: we moved the only real news — a dollar figure — into the headline. Reporters scan headlines for facts, not vision.
Pass three: we wrote the quote as a human would speak, not a board would approve: "We were losing a deal a week to this. Now we're not."
Pass four: we added one paragraph of context the reporter would otherwise have to Google — market size, why now.
Pass five: we cut it to 280 words, because nobody reads page two.

When it went out, an editor replied, "This is publishable as-is, that never happens." It ran nearly verbatim.

Lesson: A press release isn't an announcement, it's a gift. Write it so the reporter's job is already done.