What is a dateline in a press release?

A dateline is the line at the start of the body that states the city and date of the announcement, such as LONDON, June 6, 2026. In AP Style the city is usually capitalized and followed by the state or country, then the date and a dash before the first sentence.

What goes in the opening sentence of a press release?

The lede should answer who, what, and why in one sentence so a journalist can grasp the news immediately. Lead with the most newsworthy fact, name the company, and state the concrete development rather than burying it under background.

Is this opening ready to send to journalists?

No. The tool produces a structured opening with prompts for your real details. You should fill in specifics, add a strong headline, quotes, boilerplate, and contact information, and fact-check everything before distributing.

Why follow AP Style for press releases?

Most newsrooms write in AP Style, so a release that already matches their conventions for dates, titles, and numbers is faster for an editor to use. Matching the expected format signals professionalism and reduces the editing a journalist has to do.

Does this tool send my announcement anywhere?

No. All templates and formatting logic are bundled into the page, so the opening is built entirely in your browser. Nothing you type or generate is uploaded.

Press Release Opening Generator

A press release opens with a dateline and a lede — the first paragraph that delivers the news in a single, tight sentence answering who, what, and why. Journalists decide in seconds whether the story is worth their time, so the opening carries most of the weight. This tool generates an AP-style dateline plus an opening paragraph for the four most common announcement types: product launch, funding, partnership, and award.

How it works

The generator stores lede patterns for each announcement type. When you generate an opening it:

Reads the news type, your company name, city, and headline detail.
Builds an AP-style dateline in the form CITY, Month Day, Year —.
Inserts your details into a lede pattern for that news type and adds a supporting sentence.

The dateline uses today’s date by default; you can override the city. The result is a paste-ready opening you then expand with quotes and boilerplate.

Tips and example

Lead with the news, not the company history. The first sentence should state what is new.
Keep the lede to one sentence under about 30 words; move detail into the second paragraph.
Spell out the month, abbreviate nothing in the city name, and capitalize the city in the dateline.
A finished launch lede might read: “LONDON, June 6, 2026 — Acme today launched Acme Pay, a checkout product that cuts payment failures by 30 percent for online retailers.”