prREACH Editorial Guidelines for News Releases
prREACH’s editorial staff reviews all press releases before distribution to ensure that content is newsworthy, accurate and in an acceptable press release format. Attention to the following guidelines will help your press release get speedy approval and distribution on our platform.
prREACH press releases must contain a clear, timely and newsworthy angle and be free of advertising hype, direct address and spam. Press releases should incorporate the following features/qualities.
Newsworthy Content: Common news angles include timely information about a new product or service, a business expansion or recent event, an organizational milestone like an anniversary or award or the issuance of a tip sheet or expert opinion on a topic currently in the news. The news announcement must be clearly stated in the headline. Not everything is news. Do not try to use your press release for advertising or to post a general interest article, “open letters” and the like that lack attribution and/or news value.
Objective Tone: prREACH press releases should be free of hype flags and direct address (i.e. “you,” “I,” “we,” etc.) unless used within a quotation from a spokesperson of a company or organization AND that quotation is written in the quotation section on the pr submission form. Direct address is not allowed anywhere in the body of the press release, including quotations used in the body of the release. Direct address is a flag that the content is an advertisement rather than a news release. Similarly, hype flags — exclamation points; hyperbolic product/service claims; descriptions of a product or service as AMAZING, or the use of upper case characters to create emphasis — challenge the credibility of your news announcement.
Legally Accurate: prREACH requires a case number, court of record, complaint number or other sufficient documentation for all press releases referencing legal action or criminal matters. (Please see our separate editorial guidelines on distributing press releases about legal and political matters.)
prREACH Legal News Guidelines:
prREACH distributes press releases about legal and political issues that are accurate and conform to our editorial guidelines.
Press releases on prREACH about legal cases and political issues must:
• Cite from and contain a case or complaint number, as well as the court of record, for all officially filed legal actions and accusations of illegal conduct referenced in the release
• Contain explicit attribution to an authorized source of the material, such as court documents
• Cite from a fact checked news source; proper citation needs to provide the source of the report, the date it was published or aired, and a link to the site
• Be accurate and free of potentially libelous material
• Be free of content intended to harm or exact revenge upon an individual or group
• Clearly identify opinions in quotes or attribute these statements as opinions belonging to the organization, and not state as fact
• Be written in an acceptable press release format
Press releases on prREACH about legal cases and political matters can:
• Contain fair comment of a political or public figure as long as this content does not cross over into libel territory
• Express the opinion or official stance of an organization on a public issue or current event, however opinions must be put into the form of a quote and properly attributed to the organization making the statement
Press releases on prREACH about legal cases and political matters are not:
• Announcements of intentions to file a court case against an individual or group
• Open letters
• Potentially libelous, which is defined as content that falsely depicts or implies:
◦ A person has committed a crime or is guilty of illegal activity
◦ A person lacks mental capacity
◦ A person has engaged in immoral behavior
◦ A person has a loathsome disease
• Interpretations of legal proceedings
◦ All claims about events surrounding a court case need to be attributed to court documents
◦ Until a case is decided, events can not be interpreted, but only detail what court documents allege
• Avoid inflammatory language, hyperbole and unattributed opinion
• An invasion of someone’s privacy
• Threatening, abusive, menacing, offensive, violent, intimidating or otherwise objectionable
• Intended to harm or exact revenge upon an individual or group, which is defined as content that is deemed intended to:
◦ Incite, advocate or express hatred, bigotry, racism or gratuitous violence
◦ Promote personal opinions attacking an individual or group
◦ Maliciously affect a company’s stock
◦ Stalk, defame, defraud, degrade, shame or victimize an individual or group
◦ Additionally, prREACH does not publish releases that attempt to incite fear or panic, including but not limited to releases predicting the end of the world or terrorist attacks.
Valid Contact Info: prREACH press releases must contain a valid phone number and e-mail address in the contact information.
Written Authorization: In certain cases, such as with network marketing companies, with the use of a stock ticker symbol, or with major corporate announcements such as (but not limited to) those related to M&A, prREACH may require written authorization from a company executive before a press release is approved for distribution. Independent representatives of network marketing companies, MLM or party plan companies must always obtain the express consent of the company’s executive.
Standard Length: prREACH press releases should be between 300 and 800 words. The length of your release directly affects its distribution, and press releases that are overly short or long may have trouble being indexed in the search engines. The news Summary should also be limited to 1 or 2 sentences.
Standard Grammar and Spelling: prREACH press releases should be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Although jargon and acronyms are good for search engine ranking, make sure to include definitions for industry jargon so the average person can understand as well.
prREACH Formatting: prREACH press releases cannot contain HTML tags and other formatting such as non-standard characters, tables or forced line breaks. Releases also should not be written partially or entirely in all capital letters. Before submitting your release, please ensure all links in your release are fully functional. If your website is not available or fully functional at the time of editorial review, you will need to remove the links from your release, or wait until the website is in operation to submit.
Video Script: prREACH requires that you create a separate video script with your submission. This script should be a summary (250 – 350 words) of the overall message of the press release written in broadcast style. We understand that sometimes the video script and the written release may be very similar, however, exact copy and pasted versions of your written release are not allowed, as this defeats the purpose of the video script. Video scripts should contain natural, spoken language and grammar, should use quotes sparingly with attribution placed at the beginning of the sentence, and should not contain URLs. All video releases will automatically conclude with, “For more information visit the link below…” therefore, such conclusive phrases are not required at the end of the video script.
A Clear News Source: prREACH requires a clear news source be identified in the headline. The news source is the company or organization that is issuing the release. If your agency, firm or business is distributing on behalf of a client, then the source would be the client’s company or organization’s name. It should also be clear how that company or organization relates to the news announcement.
Email Addresses: prREACH does not recommend the use of email addresses within the body of the press release. If an email address is included, our editorial team will modify the email address to be in this format Name (at) example (dot) com.
Financial Visibility: In addition to the standard editorial guidelines that apply to all release levels, there are a set of additional guidelines that specifically apply to the Financial Visibility release.
Auto Play Audio/Video: Please ensure that there is no auto play audio or video embedded in your press release or company website. Auto play audio conflicts with the prREACH press release video and needs to be either paused or muted by default. Press releases with auto play audio/video will be rejected.
Redirections: Please ensure there is no code in the embedded company website that redirects the user from the press release page to another page. Press releases that redirect the user will be rejected.
Pop Ups: Please ensure there are no embedded pop ups in either the press release page or the embedded company website. Press releases with pop ups will be rejected.
prREACH does not distribute:
Advertisements: Press releases are distributed via a direct-to-consumer platform but are written in a standard press release format with a news angle — not to sell to consumers. A good press release informs the media and the general public about a newsworthy topic. If your press release reads like an advertisement, rewrite it.
Personal Opinions: prREACH will not distribute content intended to harm or exact personal revenge against a person or group. prREACH typically accepts press releases related to political, public policy and other sensitive matters, provided opinions are appropriately attributed and the release does not contain unsubstantiated allegations or excessive hyperbole.
Unaccepted File Attachment Types: prREACH does not accept releases that contain links or attachments with extensions other than the following: jpeg, gif, png, tiff, bmp, ps, pdf, doc*,xl*, rtf, ppt, mpeg, mp* and mov.
Sexually Explicit Content: To ensure the integrity of our service for all, prREACH does not accept content about sexually explicit material or products. Press releases should not contain references or links to explicitly sexual material, illegal material or profane language. Please note that all 18-and-older Web sites are considered sexually explicit.
SPAM: Avoid getting caught in content filters because of the prominence, high volume or density of words and/or phrases that are frequently found in advertisements, unwanted e-mail (SPAM) or on non-newsworthy websites. Examples of these words and phrases include girls, amazing, FREE, sex, naked, buy, “make money” and “don’t miss this opportunity”.
Link SPAM: Please limit your link count to 3 links per press release. This policy is in place to protect the value of the links in a press release and the value of links within the prREACH network. Use of web addresses in the text of release should be limited and may be revised or removed during editorial review unless it is simple or reflects the name of the product or business (e.g. “goodproduct.com”)
Blog Posts: Blog posts, general interest articles, “open letters” and the like usually lack attribution and/or news value and are not an acceptable press release format.
Opinion Pieces: News releases can be about a person or group’s opinion on a topical subject, but should not contain only opinion. Opinions not attributed to a source are flags that the content may be an advertisement or opinion column rather than a news release.
Reprints: News and feature articles, opinion columns, editorials or news stories from other websites or publications, especially if they are copyrighted, are not press releases.
Fiction: All prREACH users must agree to submit only accurate information.
Duplicate Content: The search engines and other targeted audiences do not want to see the same release more than once.
Intent to Harm: prREACH does not distribute content intended to harm or exact revenge upon an individual or group. This content is defined as anything deemed intended to: incite, advocate or express hatred, bigotry, racism or gratuitous violence; promote personal opinions attacking an individual or group; maliciously affect a company’s stock; or stalk, defame, defraud, degrade, shame or victimize an individual or group.
Unauthorized Ticker Symbols: While we encourage our clients to use any ticker symbols they are authorized to use in their press releases, we will need to receive the proper authorization from the source company for each ticker symbol used. If unable to provide this, we will ask that any ticker symbols be removed from the release.
Online Gambling: prREACH does not publish releases that promote or link to online gambling, fantasy sports and related sites.
Streaming Video Sites: prREACH does not publish releases that promote, or provide access to, streaming video content from premium broadcast providers or television channels without the direct authorization from the original broadcast owner.
Payday or Short Term Loans: prREACH does not publish releases that promote or link to payday or short term loan services.
Online Pharmaceuticals: prREACH does not accept releases that promote sexual enhancement drugs or supplements, or online pharmacies that do not require a prescription.
Work from home: prREACH does not accept releases that promote work from home programs.
Stock recommendations: prREACH does not accept releases that promote stock picks, newsletters, alerts, recommendations, advice or reviews. Publicly traded companies may still promote their own news.
Electronic cigarettes: prREACH does not accept releases that promote the sale or use of electronic cigarettes.
Green coffee beans: prREACH does not accept releases that promote the sale or use of green coffee bean extract or supplements.
Raspberry ketone: prREACH does not accept releases that promote the sale or use of raspberry ketone
Over-optimization: prREACH does not accept releases that contain keyword or link over-optimization. prREACH also reserves the right to remove news releases that are determined to have earned unnatural inbound links through participation in paid link schemes. On occasion prREACH will review client releases to ensure they remain compliant with search engine Webmaster Guidelines.
* prREACH’s editorial staff reviews all press releases before distribution. prREACH editors have the final say in determining what content is appropriate for distribution on the prREACH platform.
These guidelines are meant to supplement prREACH’s terms of service which require users to be responsible for the content and accuracy of all information submitted to us.
Violation of YouTube Terms of service:
Any violation of YouTube terms of service or trying to artificially inflate prREACH’s search rankings will result in immediate termination without refund no exceptions.
For your reference, TOU #4 Section H states:
You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, “robots,” “spiders,” or “offline readers,” that accesses the Service in a manner that sends more request messages to the YouTube servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser. Notwithstanding the foregoing, YouTube grants the operators of public search engines permission to use spiders to copy materials from the site for the sole purpose of and solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. YouTube reserves the right to revoke these exceptions either generally or in specific cases. You agree not to collect or harvest any personally identifiable information, including account names, from the Service, nor to use the communication systems provided by the Service (e.g., comments, email) for any commercial solicitation purposes. You agree not to solicit, for commercial purposes, any users of the Service with respect to their Content.
Services that attempt to gain views through automated means or that force or trick viewers into watching videos are not ok. This could be through a variety of means, including, among other things, deceptive layouts on third party websites that trick viewers into playing a video when they click unrelated elements on the page. It might also be serving up embedded videos instead of intended content, serving pop-unders, re-directing and/or a variety of other methods people use to try to inflate viewership.
If you are going to contract someone to help promote your content, it should be someone you absolutely trust, as you may be putting the fate of your channel (and your business on YouTube) in their hands. If they are using methods that aren’t within our terms, you will be the one to pay the price, as it will be your videos and your channel that get taken down. And don’t just take their word for it – ask the tough questions, find out how they promote your content and do your due diligence. Ultimately, you are responsible for knowing and abiding by our terms – this means understanding the nature of the traffic on your channel and making sure you are in compliance with our terms. Ignorance of bad traffic or other actions taken on your behalf may lead to your account being removed from YouTube.