The most expensive mistake in small-business PR isn't a bad wire or a weak pitch. It's distributing an announcement that was never news: paying $300 to put "Company Remains in Business" on the record, getting zero pickup, and concluding PR doesn't work.
Journalists apply a filter to every pitch in about eight seconds. This article is that filter, turned into five questions you can run yourself before you spend a dollar. Score honestly: 4–5 yes answers means pitch it, 2–3 means distribute it but don't expect journalists to bite, 0–1 means wait.
Question 1: Did something actually change? (Timing)
News means new. There must be an event, something that is true today that wasn't true last month, with a date attached.
Passes:
- "We closed a $2M seed round on Tuesday"
- "We're opening our second location on March 1"
- "We just crossed 10,000 customers"
Fails:
- "We offer great customer service" is a permanent condition, not an event
- "Reminder that our product exists" reports no change at all
- "We launched eight months ago and never announced it" describes a real change, but the clock ran out. Staleness kills timing just as surely
The fix when you fail this one: create the event. Publish the report on a date. Announce the milestone the week you cross it. Tie your expertise to something happening in the world right now. A founder commenting on a new regulation the week it drops has timing, and the same comment in July doesn't.
Question 2: Is it big enough for the room? (Magnitude)
Magnitude is relative to the audience. "Big" for TechCrunch is a $50M round. "Big" for your county business journal is six new jobs. Most founders fail this question in one of two directions: pitching national outlets with local-scale news, or, more commonly, not pitching local and trade outlets where their news is genuinely significant.
Passes: "We're hiring 30 people in Tulsa" → Tulsa World business desk. "First bakery in the state using a fully gluten-free facility" → state food media and trade press.
Fails: "We're hiring 30 people in Tulsa" → national tech press. Same fact, wrong room.
Ask it this way: in which specific publication would this fact be above the fold? If you can name one, you pass, at least for that publication. If the honest answer is "none," distribute for the record and skip the pitching.
Question 3: Is there novelty, conflict, or surprise?
Journalists are pattern-matching machines, and the pattern they hunt is "wait, really?" Novelty means first, only, biggest, or against-the-grain. Conflict means a tension: old way vs. new way, David vs. Goliath, expectation vs. data.
Passes:
- "First licensed drone delivery service in the state" is a first
- "We raised prices 40% and churn went down, and here's the data" cuts against expectations
- "Independent pharmacy takes on PBMs with transparent pricing" is David vs. Goliath
Fails:
- "We launched an AI feature" signals the absence of novelty in 2026
- "Our new office is bigger" has no tension and no surprise
- Any sentence containing "revolutionary" or "game-changing." If you have to say it, it isn't, and adjectives are what people use when they don't have a fact
The fix: dig for the counterintuitive number in your own business. Almost every company has one: the thing customers do that surprises even you. That number is your novelty.
Question 4: Would a stranger care? (Relevance)
The brutal question. Your funding round matters enormously to you, your team, and your investors. Journalists write for none of those people. A story earns coverage when a stranger, the outlet's reader, gets something from it: useful information, a warning, a trend that affects them, or genuine entertainment.
Passes: "We surveyed 2,000 homeowners: average roof replacement now costs $14,800, up 19%." A stranger planning a roof replacement cares intensely.
Fails: "We restructured our leadership team." No stranger anywhere cares, unless you're publicly traded or the executive is famous.
The reframe that rescues borderline announcements: lead with what the stranger gets, not what you did. "Acme launches scheduling software" fails. "40% of missed medical appointments happen for one preventable reason, and a local startup built around fixing it" is the same news, passing. This single reframe is most of what PR professionals actually do to announcements.
Question 5: Can you prove it? (Proof)
Every claim in your story should survive a skeptical journalist asking "says who?" Numbers with sources, named customers who'll take a call, a demo that works, photos that exist. Vague claims don't just weaken a pitch. They mark you as someone who'll waste a journalist's time.
Passes: "10,000 customers" backed by a dashboard you'll screenshot, or "fastest in its class" backed by a benchmark anyone can run.
Fails: "Industry-leading," "trusted by thousands," and "best-in-class," all unfalsifiable filler. If a claim can't be checked, cut it before someone else does.
Proof also has a home: a press page with your facts sheet, photos, and boilerplate, so verification takes a journalist two minutes instead of an email thread.
Scoring it: what to do at each level
- 4–5 yes: You have a story. Write the release (a template gets the structure right), distribute it for the record, and pitch a hand-picked list. The no-agency playbook covers how.
- 2–3 yes: You have an announcement, not a story. Distribution still makes sense, because it builds your public record, your search results, and your "as seen on" credibility for a few hundred dollars (costs here). But skip the pitching, or fix the failing questions first. Usually the fixable ones are relevance (reframe for the stranger) and novelty (find your counterintuitive number).
- 0–1 yes: Wait. No wire, no agency, no amount of distribution fixes the absence of news. The cheapest PR decision you'll ever make is not announcing the thing that isn't one.
The test takes five minutes and saves you from the only unrecoverable PR outcome: teaching journalists that email from you is safe to ignore.
Got news that passes? [See how RepuPR turns it into a distributed release](/how-it-works): guided writing, real outlets, public pricing.