Press release contact information is the name, title, phone number and email of the one person a reporter should reach about the announcement, plus the company name and website. It sits in a clearly labeled block, either at the top of the release beside the headline or at the end after the boilerplate, which is where wire services such as PR Newswire place it. The block exists for one reason. When a journalist reads your release and wants a quote, a number or a confirmation, it tells them exactly who to call and how.
That sounds simple, and most teams still get it wrong. The rest of this piece gives you the format, a three-part standard to test it against, and three short examples you can copy.
What goes in a press release contact block
The core fields have not changed in decades. You need a full name, a job title, the organization, a direct phone number and a direct email address. PR Newswire’s own press release template adds a website and social media handles on separate lines, and its guidance says to “include the name, phone number, email address and social media information for your media contact person.”
Business Wire describes the same set in its guide to distributing releases. It lists “contact information for media inquiries, including the name, title, phone number, and email address,” and states that a designated spokesperson or media relations contact should always be included.
Some distributors make it a rule rather than a suggestion. EIN Presswire’s editorial guidelines say a release “must contain a valid contact name, phone number, and email address in the contact information.” If any of those three are missing, the release can be held back.
Treat social handles and a website as extras. A reporter on deadline will call or email, and if neither works, they will write the story without you.
Why do reporters care so much about this one block?
Because it is how they finish the story. Business Wire’s 2020 media survey asked journalists which elements of a release matter most. Contact information landed in the top three for 51% of respondents, second only to multimedia assets at 57% and ahead of company background at 38%. The same survey found 73% of journalists check an organization’s press releases when vetting it.
The complaint that contact details are missing is not old news either. In July 2025, Andrew Marshall of Cognito wrote up a LinkedIn thread started by Joshua Chaffin, a longtime Financial Times reporter now at The Wall Street Journal, about how hard it has become to reach press contacts, since so many releases list only social handles. WSJ reporter Gregory Zuckerman said generic contact forms do not work on deadline. Bloomberg News reporter Matthew Boyle added that when a phone number does appear, the voicemail is often full or was never set up. Veteran tech reporter Nick Huber said a press officer without a phone number and email on the press page or in a signature is not doing the job properly.
Not everyone in that thread agreed. Norval Scott, head of PR at CloudNC, said reporters rarely call him and a public number mostly draws sales calls. That is a fair point, and it shapes the advice below. List a line you control, not your switchboard.
Put it where an editor will look first
There are two accepted placements, and both work if you commit to one. The traditional emailed format puts a short contact block at the top left, under “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” and above the headline, so the reader sees the owner of the story before reading a word of it. Wire distribution flips that. PR Newswire’s template places contact information as the final section, after the boilerplate, under a plain heading.
The rule that matters more than position is labeling. Use a clear heading such as “Media Contact” so nobody mistakes it for a sales line or an investor relations desk. If your announcement also goes to investors, give each audience its own labeled block.
Before the release goes out, have someone other than the writer review the block as a reporter would. Dial the number. Send a test email to the address. Check that the name on the release matches the person who will answer that week, not the person who held the job when the template was built. Contact blocks break most often when someone copies them forward from an old release.
Meet the Name-Line-Window standard
Here is a three-part test to run on every release before it goes out. Call it the Name-Line-Window standard. A contact block passes only when all three parts are true.
Name means a real, named human with a title that signals authority to speak. “Media Relations” is a department. “Dana Reyes, Director of Communications” is someone a reporter can ask for by name and quote as a source if needed.
Line means a direct route to that person, in two channels. A mobile or direct dial number that reaches them, not a main switchboard, and a personal work email, not a web form. A shared inbox like press@ can sit underneath as a backup, never as the only path.
Window means the reporter knows when that person is reachable. For most releases, this is implied by the date and time zone in the dateline. For embargoed news, a launch across time zones, or anything likely to draw questions after hours, add a line with the time zone and an after-hours alternate. The Window is the part most teams skip, and the one that saves a story at 9 p.m. Eastern.
Score it fast. One missing part means the block fails. If you cannot name a person, give a direct line and state a window, the release is not ready to send, however good the headline is.
Format it the way AP-trained editors read
Most newsrooms in the U.S. edit to the Associated Press Stylebook, so matching its conventions makes your block look like it belongs. According to Journalist’s Resource’s summary of AP basics, phone numbers use hyphens between the groups of digits, and a U.S. area code is not preceded by a 1 or a plus sign. So write 212-555-0147, not (212) 555.0147 or +1 212 555 0147. For international contacts, include the country code so the number works from abroad.
AP spells email as one word with no hyphen, so label the line “Email,” not “E-mail.”
Keep one item per line. Editors scan contact blocks; they do not read them.
Three press release contact information examples
All three examples below use invented companies and people, with phone numbers in the 555-01 range reserved for fiction. The first is the standard block for a single-market announcement.
Media Contact
Dana Reyes
Director of Communications, Northwind Robotics
Mobile: 412-555-0147
Email: dana.reyes@northwindrobotics.exampleThe second covers a release that goes to both reporters and investors, with a separate labeled block for each audience and an after-hours window for the media side.
Media Contact
Marcus Lee, Head of Communications, Halvorsen Bio
Mobile: 617-555-0182 | Email: mlee@halvorsenbio.example
Available until 8 p.m. ET on Nov. 3; after hours, Priya Shah, 617-555-0129
Investor Contact
Elena Ortiz, Vice President, Investor Relations, Halvorsen Bio
Phone: 617-555-0160 | Email: ir@halvorsenbio.exampleThe third is an agency-managed block, where the reporter reaches the agency first. The client’s name stays visible so the journalist knows exactly who the agency speaks for.
Media Contact for Bluefin Coffee Co.
Jordan Park, Senior Account Director, Tidewater PR
Mobile: 503-555-0113
Email: jordan@tidewaterpr.exampleEach of the three passes the Name-Line-Window standard. Each has a named human, a direct number and email, and either an explicit window or a dateline that makes it obvious.
What do wire services expect from you?
Wire services check the contact block, and each has its own wording. PR Newswire’s template lists name, title, company name, phone number, email address, website and social handles, in that order, as the closing section. Its guidance frames this as how journalists follow up and ask questions.
Business Wire asks for your contact details in two places, and they do different jobs. Its Connect quick-start guide asks for “your current contact information” in the release details step “for our internal use only,” so the newsroom can reach you about the order. That internal contact is not your published media contact. Fill in both, and make sure the published one sits inside the release text itself.
EIN Presswire, as noted above, requires a valid contact name, phone number and email in the release. Its guidelines go further for financial topics, including cryptocurrency, requiring contact information and a postal address to be available on the company’s website or social pages. Check each distributor’s current editorial rules before you file, because these policies change and a held release costs you the news cycle.
Skip the mistakes that kill a follow-up
The most common failure is the dead number. A main line that routes to a phone tree, a mobile that nobody picks up, or a voicemail box that is full. Bloomberg’s Matthew Boyle named that last one in the 2025 thread for a reason. Before launch day, record a voicemail greeting that names the release and promises a callback time, then keep that promise.
The second is the web form. A “contact us” link in place of an email address tells a reporter their question will be triaged by someone in customer support. On deadline, that is the same as no contact at all.
The third is the stale name. The person listed left six months ago, or is on vacation the week the release lands. Assign a backup before you send and name them in the block if the news is time-sensitive.
The fourth is listing the CEO. Executives belong in the quotes. Unless your chief executive will pick up a reporter’s call within the hour and is comfortable speaking on background, list the person who will.
Who should be the named media contact?
Pick the person who can say yes. A useful media contact can answer the follow-up questions a reporter will ask, confirm figures in the release, and arrange an interview with the executive quoted, all within a few hours. Marshall’s July 2025 piece made the same point: a media contact should be able to discuss the substance of a release on background, not only take messages.
For most founders, that is the head of communications, an in-house PR lead or your agency account lead. With no one in that role, the founder can do it, as long as they answer the phone that day.
Here is the short version. Good press release contact information is a named person, a direct phone and email, and a clear window when they can be reached, set in one labeled block at the top of the release or after the boilerplate. Format the numbers in AP style, give investors their own block, test every line before you send, and keep the CEO in the quotes. A reporter who reaches you in one call is a reporter who includes you in the story.