In shortThe Apex Flow Press encyclopedia holds 71 short, sourced entries on the terms behind the news: press and media-relations basics, each with a direct answer, the full explanation and its sources.
[ ENCYCLOPEDIA ]
Plain-language answers, definitions and sources for the terms behind the news. 71 entries, A to Z.
Measurement
Advertising value equivalency (AVE) is a discredited method of valuing earned media coverage by estimating what the same space or airtime would have cost as paid advertising. The Barcelona Principles for PR measurement explicitly reject it, stating plainly that AVEs are not the value of communication.
Ethics and law
Alt text is a written description attached to an image so that people using screen readers, and search engines, can understand what it shows. W3C accessibility guidance distinguishes informative, decorative, functional and complex images, each needing a different kind of text alternative, always based on the image's purpose in context.
Media relations
An anonymous source is a person who provides information to a journalist on condition that their identity is not published. Journalists use them when named sources fear retaliation or lack authorization to speak, but reputable newsrooms generally require corroboration and reserve anonymity for cases where it is genuinely necessary.
Press releases
AP style is the Associated Press Stylebook's set of rules for grammar, punctuation, abbreviation and usage in American news writing. Newsrooms, broadcasters and public relations professionals follow it so that dates, titles, numbers and datelines are written the same way across organizations.
Apex Flow Press
Apex Flow Press, the official newsroom of Apex Flow Labs, can be reached at info@apexflowlabs.com. Its dispatch log is also available as machine-readable feeds at /feed.xml (RSS) and /feed.json (JSON Feed), so subscribers and tools can follow new dispatches automatically.
Ethics and law
Attribution means correctly crediting the source of information, a quote, an image or an idea, rather than presenting someone else's work or words as your own. Journalism ethics require it explicitly, and it applies equally to press releases, photos and any content that draws on outside material.
Formats and assets
An audio news release (ANR), sometimes called a radio news release, is a short, produced audio segment about an organization's news that is distributed to radio stations. It is packaged as a finished piece, often including an announcer track and a recorded quote known as an actuality, ready to air.
Formats and assets
B-roll is supplemental video footage, such as scene-setting shots or related action, that editors cut alongside a main interview or narration to add visual context and variety. The term comes from film editing, where a second reel of footage supported the primary A-roll.
Newsroom
A backgrounder is a short narrative document, usually one to two pages, that explains an organization's history, an event's context, or a product's development in paragraph form. It supplements a press release by giving journalists depth they can use without extra research.
Digital and SEO
A backlink is a hyperlink from another website pointing to yours, and links earned through genuine press coverage are generally treated as a natural signal of a page's importance. Paid or manipulative links, including optimized anchor text in distributed press releases, must be marked with rel='sponsored' or 'nofollow' to comply with search engine policy.
Measurement
The Barcelona Principles are a voluntary set of guidelines for measuring public relations and communication, first agreed by practitioners convened by AMEC in Barcelona in 2010 and updated in 2015 and 2020. Every version rejects advertising value equivalency as a measure of communication's worth.
Press releases
In a press release, the boilerplate is the short standard 'About' paragraph at the end that describes the issuing organization. It is written in the third person, reused with little change on every release, and gives journalists a reliable summary of who the organization is.
Digital and SEO
A canonical URL is the version of a page that a publisher signals as the preferred one to index when duplicate or near-duplicate pages exist. It is set through methods such as a rel=canonical link, a redirect, or a sitemap entry, and functions as a hint to search engines rather than a strict command.
Measurement
A press clipping is an article physically cut from a newspaper or magazine and kept as a record, historically collected by dedicated clipping bureaus for clients tracking their own coverage. The term now also describes the digital equivalent: saving or archiving a piece of coverage for a similar record-keeping purpose.
Ethics and law
Copyright in a photograph is generally held by the photographer from the moment it is created, unless it was made as a work for hire or the photographer has transferred their rights in a signed written agreement. Using someone else's photo without permission or a valid license generally requires the copyright owner's authorization. This is general information, not legal advice.
Newsroom
A correction policy is a newsroom's public commitment to fix factual errors openly and promptly. It typically states what counts as an error worth correcting, how corrections are labelled and dated, and how the organization stays accountable, so mistakes are fixed in the open rather than quietly edited away.
Media relations
Crisis communication is the planned, honest handling of information during an event that threatens an organization's reputation or operations. Good practice moves through preparation before a crisis, fast and factual response during one, and review afterward, guided by speed, accuracy and credibility.
Press releases
A dateline is the short line at the start of a news story or press release that says where and when it was written or filed. In American style it usually shows the city in capital letters, then the state or country, then the date, before the first sentence.
Apex Flow Press
A dispatch is a single filed entry on Apex Flow Press, reporting one real, shipped event or update from within the Apex Flow ecosystem. Each dispatch is numbered by its position in the dispatch log and follows the wire's standard of reporting only things that actually happened.
Apex Flow Press
The dispatch log is the ordered record of every dispatch filed on Apex Flow Press, listed newest first. Its order determines each dispatch's issue number, and it functions as the site's archive of everything that has actually shipped within the Apex Flow ecosystem.
Measurement
Earned, owned and paid media describe three ways an organization's message reaches an audience: earned media is coverage published by a third party without payment, owned media is content the organization publishes on channels it controls, and paid media is advertising bought directly. A fourth category, shared or social media, is sometimes added to make the PESO model.
Newsroom
An editorial calendar, or content calendar, is a planning tool that schedules what content will be published, where and when, across channels such as a newsroom, blog, email newsletter or social media. It helps keep publishing consistent and coordinates announcements with other planned content.
Press releases
A news embargo is an agreement that journalists will not publish a piece of information until a set date and time. It gives reporters advance access to research and prepare accurate stories, and it is honoured on trust; breaking one can cost the outlet future advance access.
Press releases
An end mark is a symbol placed after the last line of a press release to show that the text is complete. The traditional mark is -30-, and ### (three number signs) or -END- are common modern equivalents. Anything after the mark, such as contact details, is not part of the story.
Ethics and law
Ethics and law in press and media relations cover honest disclosure, respect for copyright, attribution of sources and images, and truthful communication with journalists and the public. This entry, and the others in this category, give general information for common situations, not legal advice for a specific case.
Press releases
An exclusive is a story that only one reporter or a small group of reporters has obtained. In media relations, offering an exclusive means giving one outlet the story first, and alone, in return for prominent coverage, before the news is shared more widely.
Ethics and law
A fabricated quote is a statement attributed to someone who never said it, or altered from what they actually said. It is a serious breach of both journalism ethics and public relations ethics, since it deceives audiences and can be legally and reputationally damaging for everyone involved. This is general information, not legal advice.
Newsroom
A fact sheet is a short, scannable document, usually one page, that lists the essential verified details about an organization, product, event or person: headings, bullet points and short descriptions instead of narrative paragraphs, built for a reporter to check facts quickly.
Press releases
'For immediate release' is a heading placed at the top of a press release to signal that the information may be published as soon as it is received, with no embargo. It is the default status for most releases and is written in all capitals at the top left of the page.
Ethics and law
The FTC's Endorsement Guides require clear, unavoidable disclosure of any material connection, such as payment or free products, between a brand and someone endorsing it. Disclosures should use plain words like 'ad' or 'sponsored', placed where they cannot be missed, not buried in a bio or a hashtag. This is general information, not legal advice.
Digital and SEO
Google News surfaces content automatically from the normal web crawl; publishers do not need to apply for inclusion, only to follow Google's overall and news-specific content policies. Publisher Center is a separate management tool for monetization and Showcase settings, not a content publishing system.
Formats and assets
High-resolution images with accurate captions are a core press kit asset: sharp enough for print and web use, embedded with standard metadata such as creator and copyright, and captioned honestly so a caption never misleads readers about what the photo actually shows.
Newsroom
A holding statement is a brief statement issued quickly after a crisis or incident to acknowledge what is known, show the organization is engaged, and buy time to gather facts before a fuller response. It contains only confirmed information and never speculates about causes.
Formats and assets
An infographic is a graphic visual representation of information, data or knowledge designed to present it quickly and clearly. Good infographics balance visual appeal, comprehension and memorability, and they work well in a press kit when they turn genuine, sourced data into an easy-to-share visual.
Press releases
The inverted pyramid is a way of structuring news writing so the most important information comes first and less important detail follows. It lets readers stop at any point and still understand the story, and lets editors cut from the bottom without losing the key facts.
Apex Flow Press
An issue number is the sequential number assigned to a dispatch based on its position in the Apex Flow Press dispatch log. It gives each dispatch a fixed, citable place in the historical record, similar to how a printed newsletter or wire service numbers its issues over time.
Media relations
Journalist relations is the ongoing practice of building trust-based, professional relationships with reporters over time, rather than treating each pitch as a one-off transaction. It rests on understanding a journalist's beat, respecting their deadlines, and being consistently honest and useful.
Newsroom
JSON Feed is a modern web syndication format, an alternative to RSS and Atom, that describes a feed's items using JSON instead of XML. A version 1.1 feed requires a version identifier, a title and a list of items, each with a unique id, making it simple for developers to generate and read.
Press releases
The lede, also spelled lead, is the opening paragraph of a news story or press release. It carries the most important facts, typically answering who, what, when, where, why and how, so a reader understands the essential news even if they stop after the first few lines.
Formats and assets
Logo usage guidelines tell journalists and partners how to use an organization's logo correctly: minimum clear space, minimum size, approved color and file formats, and a clear list of what not to do, such as stretching, recoloring or adding effects to the mark.
Measurement
Measurement in public relations means judging the effect of communication work using honest, verifiable methods, such as tracked coverage, defined outcomes and the Barcelona Principles' outcome-based approach, rather than inflated output counts or discredited methods like advertising value equivalency.
Press releases
A media advisory, also called a media alert, is a short notice that invites journalists to an upcoming event. It lists the who, what, when, where and why in a few lines so a newsroom can decide whether to send someone. A press release, by contrast, tells the full story.
Measurement
Media coverage tracking, also called media monitoring, is the process of finding and recording mentions of an organization across news, broadcast, blogs and social media. It typically tracks keyword mentions, which outlets covered a story, and engagement indicators, without relying on invented or unverifiable numbers.
Newsroom
Media inquiry handling is the process an organization follows when a journalist reaches out: route the request to a communications contact quickly, ask the topic and deadline, decide who should respond, and give an honest answer or a clear timeline, never silence.
Media relations
A media list is a working, maintained record of journalists and outlets relevant to an organization's stories, built around beat fit and recent coverage rather than sheer size. A good list is segmented by relevance and kept current, so pitches go to the right person instead of a generic blast.
Media relations
A media pitch is a short, personalized message sent to a journalist to interest them in covering a story. Effective pitches lead with the news hook in the first line, stay to roughly 100 to 300 words, and are tailored to the specific reporter's beat rather than mass-blasted.
Media relations
Media training prepares a spokesperson to give clear, accurate answers under the pressure of an interview or press conference. It typically covers defining a few key messages, practicing the bridging technique, handling difficult or hostile questions, and avoiding reflexive, trust-damaging answers such as 'no comment'.
Digital and SEO
A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Major agencies, including Havas, the Associated Press and Reuters, were founded in the nineteenth century and remain distinct from paid press release distribution services.
Press releases
A news release is another name for a press release: an official announcement issued to the news media. In practice the terms 'news release', 'press release' and 'media release' are used interchangeably, and the choice usually reflects an organization's house style rather than a difference in format.
Press releases
News values are the qualities editors and journalists use to judge whether an event is worth covering, such as timeliness, proximity, prominence, impact, conflict and human interest. Understanding them helps a press release writer explain why a story matters, not just that it happened.
Digital and SEO
NewsArticle is a schema.org structured data type used to mark up a news story so search engines can better understand its headline, author, publication date and other details. Google supports NewsArticle, along with the more general Article and BlogPosting types, though markup is not required for eligibility in Google News.
Digital and SEO
Newsroom structured data means applying schema.org markup, such as NewsArticle for individual releases and Organization or NewsMediaOrganization for the publisher itself, consistently across a newsroom so search engines and AI systems can identify authorship, dates, contact details and policies accurately.
Digital and SEO
A newswire, in the press release sense, is a paid distribution service that sends an organization's press release out to a network of media outlets, journalists and other subscribers. It is different from a news agency that employs its own reporters, and using one does not guarantee coverage.
Media relations
Off the record, on background, deep background and not for attribution describe different ground rules for how a journalist may use information a source provides. Because the exact meaning of each term varies between journalists and outlets, the specific rules should always be agreed explicitly before, not after, the conversation.
Newsroom
An online newsroom, also called a press page or press room, is a website section that holds an organization's distributable information for journalists and the public: press releases, media kits, photos, logos, executive bios and press contact details, kept current and easy to find.
Digital and SEO
Open Graph share cards use meta tags in a page's head, such as og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url, to control how a link looks when shared on social platforms. Originally created by Facebook, the protocol is now widely supported and turns a plain link into a titled preview with an image.
Digital and SEO
Organization structured data is schema.org markup that describes an organization's administrative details, such as its name, official URL, logo, contact points and social profiles, to help search engines disambiguate it and understand its real-world presence. No property is strictly required, but adding accurate ones helps.
Media relations
A press conference, also called a news conference or press briefing, is a media event where one or more speakers make a statement and then take questions from reporters. It is typically announced in advance through a media advisory and works best when the news genuinely warrants live questioning.
Newsroom
A press contact is the named person or team a journalist can reach to ask questions, request an interview, or verify a fact about an organization. Listing a real, current, monitored contact on every release and press page is one of the simplest ways to earn media trust.
Newsroom
A press kit, also called a media kit, is a pre-packaged set of promotional materials given to media outlets to support an announcement: typically a fact sheet, backgrounder, press release, executive bios, photos and logos, and contact information, bundled so a journalist has everything in one place.
Newsroom
Press page best practices cover how to organize an online newsroom so journalists can act fast: recent releases first, a clearly labelled media kit, downloadable high-resolution assets, current contact details, and separate paths for different audiences such as press, investors and job seekers.
Press releases
A press release is an official statement sent to journalists and other news media to announce something newsworthy, such as a launch, event, result or change. It is written in the third person, leads with the most important facts, and ends with a short boilerplate paragraph and media contact details.
Press releases
A press release headline is the first line of the release, a single sentence that states the news plainly and in active voice. It should tell a journalist what happened and who did it, and it doubles as the page title that search engines and readers see.
Press releases
Quotes in a press release are direct statements from named people, placed after the opening facts to add perspective, opinion or emotion that the plain facts cannot carry. They must be real, approved by the speaker, and attributed by name and role, never invented to fill space.
Newsroom
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a standardized, computer-readable web feed format that lets people and tools follow new press releases automatically instead of checking a newsroom page by hand. Publishing an RSS feed, and linking it in a page's head with a simple autodiscovery tag, makes a newsroom easier to track.
Measurement
Share of voice measures an organization's visibility relative to competitors within a defined market, typically by comparing its spending, mentions or coverage to the total for that category. Originally an advertising metric based on ad spend, the concept is now also applied, less formally, to PR coverage and search visibility.
Newsroom
A spokesperson is someone designated to speak on behalf of an organization to the media and the public. They must faithfully represent the organization's positions, even when those differ from their personal opinion, and are typically the person quoted in coverage.
Digital and SEO
Syndication is the practice of republishing the same article on more than one website, commonly through a partnership between the original publisher and a distributing outlet. For search visibility, Google now recommends that syndication partners block their copies from indexing rather than relying on canonical tags.
Apex Flow Press
'The wire, not a blog' is the operating principle of Apex Flow Press: only things that have actually shipped are filed as dispatches. It is not a place for opinion pieces, speculative announcements or marketing copy dressed as news; every entry reports something real that already happened.
Digital and SEO
The HTML title element, often called the title link in search results, should be a descriptive, concise and unique summary of each page. Google warns against repeated boilerplate titles and keyword stuffing, and notes it may rewrite a title link if it judges the page's own title to be misleading or unhelpful.
Formats and assets
A video news release (VNR) is a video segment made to look like an independent news report but actually produced by a PR firm, company, government agency or other organization and distributed to television newsrooms. Airing one without disclosing its source has drawn regulatory scrutiny in the United States over sponsorship identification.
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