An AP Style press release, or Associated Press-style press release, is a statement for the press that is correctly styled within AP guidelines. It is utilized by businesses that want to announce an event, release, or hire. It helps to increase a business’ exposure by generating possible media coverage and consumer awareness of their business.

AP Style Press Release Template

When writing an AP Style press release, it is vital that you follow the accepted press release format^[1] structure. Media outlets, journalists, and search engines will all expect to see this specific format so they can find important information quickly.

To ensure you get it right from start to finish, we’ve created a template to show you essential elements and format. This AP style press release template includes a layout to follow, instructions for the headline and subheadline, and information about what should go in each section.

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AP Style Press Release Format

AP is one of the largest news agencies in the world. It publishes a style handbook every year that governs the way they want journalists to format their content so everything is uniform, no matter who is writing the story. This style guide covers everything from formatting conventions to punctuation rules—and they apply to press releases as well.

Here are some of the key guidelines of AP Style for press releases:

Punctuation and Capitalization

To properly follow AP style guidelines, only use one space after a period, as opposed to the often used double-space.

AP style does not advocate for use of the serial comma. In listing a series of items, you can choose to use a comma before the last item in the series (Example: red, white, and blue). However, AP style requires removing that last comma (Example: red, white and blue).

Press release writers should also be aware that headlines and subheadlines should be in title case in AP style. This means that (most) every word in the headline or subheadline is capitalized. Otherwise, you should only capitalize proper nouns.