The press release turned 119 years old in 2025, and it shows. What began as a revolutionary transparency tool—Ivy Lee's 1906 statement about a Pennsylvania Railroad accident—has calcified into a ritual that consumes enormous resources while generating diminishing returns.
According to Muck Rack's State of Journalism report, 26% of journalists say they're receiving more pitches than ever, while 75% report receiving irrelevant pitches daily. The majority say they want fewer than 50 pitches per week—but many receive more than 100. The math is brutal: most press releases disappear into inboxes without generating any coverage.
This doesn't mean earned media is dead. It means the tactics for earning media have fundamentally changed.
Why Traditional Releases Fail
The structural forces working against press releases are formidable.
Newsroom Collapse
Canadian newsrooms have lost over 500 outlets and thousands of journalists since 2008. The reporters who remain are doing more with less—covering broader beats, producing for multiple platforms, and operating under constant deadline pressure. They don't have time to translate corporate announcements into stories.
According to Cision's 2024 State of the Media Report, 66% of journalists handle pitches alone without PR support. When a single reporter covers an entire industry, your press release competes with hundreds of others for their limited attention.
Information Overload
PRWeb, Business Wire, and similar services distribute hundreds of thousands of press releases annually. Journalists have responded by developing filters—mental and technological—that screen out the vast majority. Keywords like "excited to announce," "industry-leading," and "innovative solution" trigger immediate deletion.
Research by Propel found that the average journalist receives 2.5 pitches per article they write. For a reporter producing three stories per day, that's thousands of pitches competing for attention weekly.
Declining Wire Service Relevance
The wire service model assumed journalists monitored feeds for news. Today's journalists find stories through social media, source relationships, and beat-specific channels. A wire release may satisfy disclosure requirements, but it rarely generates coverage on its own.
According to Agility PR Solutions, only 3% of press releases earn any media pickup at all. The other 97% serve primarily as expensive internal documentation.
What Actually Works
The communications strategies generating earned media in 2026 share common characteristics.
Exclusive Access
Journalists prize exclusivity because it differentiates their coverage. An exclusive interview, early data access, or first look at a development gives a reporter something their competitors lack.
The approach requires selecting media targets carefully. Rather than blasting 200 outlets simultaneously, identify the three to five publications most important to your audience and offer meaningful exclusives. This may feel like reaching fewer people, but exclusive stories typically generate more prominent placement and often trigger follow-on coverage from competitors.
Original Data and Research
Nothing attracts journalist attention like genuinely newsworthy data. When your organization conducts original research, commissions credible polling, or analyzes proprietary datasets, you create news rather than merely commenting on it.
The Angus Reid Institute, Leger, and IPSOS polls are regularly cited in Canadian media precisely because they generate original findings. Businesses can apply the same principle by surveying their customers, analyzing their transaction data, or studying their industry in ways that produce genuinely interesting insights.
The key is ensuring research is methodologically sound and addresses questions journalists and their audiences actually care about. Research designed to support predetermined conclusions is transparent and damages credibility.
Expert Positioning
Journalists need sources who can explain complex topics clearly and quotably. Building relationships as a subject matter expert—someone reporters call when they need context—generates far more coverage than periodic announcements.
This requires genuine expertise and availability. Responding quickly when journalists call, providing useful context even when it doesn't directly benefit your organization, and consistently delivering clear explanations builds the trust that generates ongoing coverage.
According to Muck Rack, 64% of journalists are more likely to cover a story if they have an existing relationship with the source. The implication is clear: relationship investment precedes coverage.
Newsjacking and Rapid Response
When news breaks that intersects with your expertise, rapid response can secure coverage that planned announcements cannot. Journalists working breaking stories need sources immediately—the organization that provides useful commentary within hours often earns the coverage.
This requires monitoring relevant news, preparing holding statements on predictable topics, and establishing approval processes that enable fast response. Organizations with 48-hour approval chains cannot newsjack effectively.
Visual and Multimedia Assets
Resource-constrained newsrooms increasingly rely on provided assets. High-quality photography, broadcast-ready video clips, infographics, and data visualizations make journalists' jobs easier—and make your story more likely to be told.
According to PR Newswire, press releases with multimedia elements generate up to 9.7 times more views than text-only releases. The visual assets must be genuinely usable—proper resolution, appropriate rights, and editorial quality.
Restructuring Your Approach
Moving beyond press release dependency requires structural changes to communications operations.
Invest in Journalist Intelligence
Know which reporters cover your space, what they've written recently, and what topics interest them. Tools like Muck Rack, Cision, and Agility PR Solutions provide databases, but the real intelligence comes from actually reading journalists' work and understanding their beats.
Before pitching anyone, you should be able to answer: What has this reporter written in the past month? What angles interest them? What sources do they regularly cite? This homework separates effective pitches from spam.
Build a Source Network
Your executives and subject matter experts should be known to relevant journalists before you need coverage. This means proactive relationship building—offering background briefings, providing context on industry developments, and being helpful even when there's no immediate benefit.
The goal is becoming a trusted source, not just a pitch sender. When journalists think of your industry, they should think of calling you.
Create Genuinely Newsworthy Content
Before drafting any announcement, apply a simple test: Would a journalist covering this beat find this inherently interesting? If the honest answer is no, reconsider whether a press release is the right vehicle.
Many corporate announcements—new hires, minor product updates, routine business developments—are not newsworthy by any reasonable standard. Distributing non-news as news damages your credibility with journalists and makes future pitches less likely to receive attention.
Measure What Matters
Traditional PR metrics—releases distributed, impressions, clip counts—reward activity rather than impact. More useful metrics include: story placements in target publications, message pull-through in coverage, source relationships developed, and business outcomes attributable to earned media.
If you can't connect media coverage to business results, you're likely overinvesting in vanity metrics.
The Press Release's Remaining Role
None of this means press releases should be abandoned entirely. They retain utility in specific contexts.
Regulatory Disclosure
Publicly traded companies have disclosure obligations that press releases satisfy. These releases serve compliance purposes regardless of whether they generate coverage.
Record Creation
Press releases create documented, timestamped records of announcements. This archive has legal and historical value independent of media pickup.
Website Content
Releases posted to newsrooms provide content for stakeholders who seek information directly. Investors, partners, and job candidates may review your news archive even if journalists don't.
Wire SEO
Press releases distributed through major wire services can contribute to search visibility, though this benefit has diminished as Google's algorithms have evolved.
The Path Forward
The organizations earning meaningful media coverage in 2026 have moved beyond press release dependency. They invest in journalist relationships, create genuinely newsworthy content, respond rapidly to breaking developments, and measure impact rather than activity.
The press release isn't dead—but its role has shrunk dramatically. Communications strategies built around press release volume are generating diminishing returns. The future belongs to organizations that understand what journalists actually need and restructure their operations accordingly.
At SHIFT, we help organizations build media relations programs that generate coverage, not just activity. The era of press release dependence is ending—the question is whether your communications strategy has adapted.