Press Rooms

A press room is a website that provides official information to the media. Entities that deploy press rooms in their communication strategy include corporations, government departments and NGOs.

The goal of the press room is to facilitate press coverage for a given organization. They host press releases detailing their organization’s latest activities, bios and contact information for key personnel, and media kits containing high resolution assets—such as images, videos, and audio files, specifically for press use.

Information provided by an organization's press room can be assumed to be on-the-record. No further permission is required to quote from or otherwise use the materials provided, as long as journalistic standards are maintained. 

But press rooms aren’t just for journalists, they’re also meant to appeal to the public and attract new customers, donors, and supporters. To this end, sites can include awards and accolades, blog posts, and media coverage to make the user-base feel more connected to the brand. 

The picture of a brand presented by its press room is not a complete one. Corporate entities carefully construct these pages to paint their products and practices in the best light possible. Government press rooms reflect the policy positions of the public officials running them. Sometimes a press release will be issued to mitigate criticism, or to keep attention away from the organization’s actions in another area. With legally mandated notices being the exception, an organization publishes what it wants you to see.

The press room is an essential resource for journalists. Most sites include archives of press releases, images, video, and reference documents useful for researching the history of an organization, product, or event. Some host live video broadcasts, where reporters can submit questions to a spokesperson or apply to participate in the broadcast directly. Another common feature is the calendar, with details on pending announcements or events. Press rooms for corporations and institutions will often include recent media coverage of their activities. Such references should be checked for validity and context before citing.

Press releases are edited selectively, with bias, yet will contain nuggets that journalists can use in a story. For example, a press release from the state government about an initiative to address homelessness could kick off a story documenting the impact on the street. Or a product recall announcement from a corporation might spark a piece that investigates the faulty product. A journalist might also sniff out a misleading statement or falsehood which can be pinned on the organization in an investigative piece.

To meet ethical standards, journalists should do the necessary research and reporting to provide context to a press release. Although some outlets will publish a press release as their own story—sometimes crediting the original authors, sometimes not—this isn’t accepted journalistic practice. As a guideline for the proper use of press releases, here is an excerpt from the Associated Press internal guide to standards and practices for their staff.

Under no circumstances can news releases be published in their original form; we can use information, quotes and properly cleared images from releases, but we must judge the material’s credibility, augment it with information from other sources, and then prepare our own stories, with the release material duly credited.

Additional Information

• Government press rooms are a rich source of materials and leads. 

  • The US State Department not only supports search for press releases on foreign affairs by year, speaker, location, type, and related department, but also hosts a page for reporters to submit inquiries or request interviews with State Department officials. 

  • NASA is another government press room of note, which includes a page containing budget requests going back to 2010, and a place to watch live broadcasts of flight tests and rocket launches.

• University press rooms, like the one run by the University of California, Irvine, publish contact information for experts on a wide range of issues. 

• Corporations, including Disney, Apple, and Sony, contain archives of press releases spanning decades. 

• The International Committee of the Red Cross, a nonprofit, hosts a collection of records, film, photographs, and recordings depicting battlefield humanitarian efforts throughout history.