Journalists and editors actually prefer a Word .doc because it’s easy to copy and paste executive quotes, product names and other details they need for a story. Most media today will accept a PDF or .doc / .docx format. In the alternative, a link to where to find the press release posted online is also acceptable.
Some PR professionals paste the press release text into an email. The advantage is that your media outreach email has no attachment or link. Some recipients may be hesitant to click on these due to cybersecurity reasons. The downside of this method is that it may seem less official. And it’s easy for a long email to get overlooked. Some journalists don’t read long emails the entire way through.
You will hear contrary advice saying to never attach a press release in your media outreach emails. We are media here at Small Business Trends, and can assure you that many if not most editors and journalists prefer to get a press release attached. Alternatively, we are happy to receive a link to a press release. Members of the media are very busy and don’t have time for a lot of back and forth discussion trying to pry details out of you. Editors prefer to scan the announcement immediately in order to make a quick judgment of whether it is something relevant to their audience and appropriate for a news story.