Christopher Simmons on Send2Press, newswires, and why press releases still matter

In this edited Q&A, conducted on October 10, 2025, Newsjunkie publisher Gordon Whiting spoke with Christopher Simmons about the origins of online newswire service Send2Press, the value of long-tail distribution, how Google changed the wire business, and what AI means for information flow now.

What is Send2Press, and how did it start?
Send2Press grew out of our PR company, Neotrope. In the late ’90s—before the dot-com boom—one of the best ways to reach journalists online was through newsgroups. A lot of outlets didn’t have robust websites yet, and there weren’t the directories you’d take for granted today. We were posting client press releases where reporters were actually looking.

At first, it was a side service called Mindset Netwire—a nod to the internet era. By 2000, we decided to build it into a real business and brand it as Send2Press. We didn’t want a name that sounded too close to PR Newswire or Business Wire, so we went with something distinct—even though early on, some people thought it meant printing: “send to the press.”

People sometimes see “Neotrope” attached to Send2Press. How does that relationship work?
Send2Press is a service and brand—a DBA and registered trademark. Neotrope is the actual company: the legal entity with the history, operations, and infrastructure. Neotrope has been around since 1983 officially, with earlier roots in self-publishing.

Who were your customers early on—and who are they now?
We’ve worked with everyone from authors and entrepreneurs to established consumer brands. But our core has always been small to mid-sized organizations: the businesses and agencies that need real distribution and real guidance, not a faceless upload form and a receipt.

A big part of our approach is that we don’t treat a press release as a one-day stunt. Even early on, other wire services were deleting releases after 90 days—“not news anymore.” Our view was: if someone searches for this later, why shouldn’t they still find it? That long-tail reality is where a lot of earned media happens.

You’ve mentioned PR Newswire. Some services just mark up PR Newswire and call it a day. What’s your approach?
We’re not a reseller pretending to be something else. We have our own distribution, editorial process, outreach, and optimization. But PR Newswire is a massive company with partnerships we’ll never replicate at our scale—and some clients want those placements or that infrastructure.

So we use PR Newswire selectively as an add-on for specific needs. The simplest analogy is: you’re getting our meal, and we can add an extra course from them. It doesn’t replace what we do; it expands the footprint.

How do press releases fit into today’s media landscape?
The big shift came when press releases were widely abused as spam—cheap distribution sites, keyword stuffing, fake “news” pages. Google cracked down, especially on link policies like nofollow [a tag in a hyperlink's HTML that tells search engines not to pass any authority or "link juice" to the linked page–ed], and that forced a separation between legitimate wire distribution and low-quality content mills.

Today, it helps to think of three lanes: organic journalism (real reporting and commentary), advertorial (paid content dressed up as editorial), and legitimate wire content (clearly syndicated, properly labeled, properly formatted).

Wire content still has value: for discovery, for syndication, and for downstream coverage. A lot of trade outlets paraphrase wire releases because that’s how industry news moves—especially in sectors like fintech, mortgage tech, and B2B.

How is AI affecting your work?
We’ve been online a long time, and we’ve avoided spam tactics from the start. That credibility matters more now, not less—because AI and modern search systems lean heavily on signals like reputation, consistency, and structured publishing.

The next phase is staying ahead of indexing and metadata changes—performance, mobile-first, accessibility, and machine-readable structure for the way discovery is evolving. I’m also doing more cleanup than people might expect. Search engines are increasingly skeptical of sites that carry too much stale material indefinitely. Keeping things current—and intentionally archived—has become part of the strategy.

If you want to tell journalists, editors, and publishers why they should pay attention to Send2Press, what would you say?
I prefer people to describe their own experience. I don’t like scripted talking points. But the short version is: we’re small by design, we’re hands-on, and we take distribution seriously—because information flow is changing fast, and you can’t afford to treat it casually.