References

If preformulation is to be taken seriously, words like 'I' or 'we', 'you', 'here' and 'today' are definitely out: just imagine what would happen if a journalist copied these words in his or her newspaper article ...

Don't

Do

We ... in our factory ...

Bekaert, a world-wide leader in steel, ... in its factory ...

The company ...

We expect our profit last year was ...

The consolidated profit for 2002 is estimated at ...

We've made a profit again ...

Return to profit in a difficult economic context

Preformulation also implies you can't refer to your corporate headquarters as 'here'. And that it would be awkward to use 'today' to refer to the day when you issue the press release. Just imagine what would happen if a journalist copied these words in his or her newspaper article. Use 'in Manchester' and 'on 24 April 2004' instead.

Some even go a step further. Here's an interesting example of a special reference to time in a London Weekend Television press release about an interview back in 1980s with a member of the Thatcher government:

(London Weekend Television, London: 19 June 1987)
Speaking on LWT's The Late Clive James show tonight (Saturday, 20 June 1987) at 10.30 pm, Mrs Currie - who went to Oxford after the Prime Minister - says that when she and Mrs Thatcher were at Oxford, few other women studied there, and house rules were very strict.

This press release was issued on 19 June. The TV show that it talks about was probably recorded some time before that. Still, 'tonight' does not refer to that moment of recording or to 19 June. As is spelled out between brackets, it refers to the day of broadcasting, viz. 20 June. This is interesting because what, from the point of view of the writer of the press release, is 'tomorrow night' is actually referred to as 'tonight'. In other words, the writer of the press release takes the perspective of the journalists, who will write about Edwina Currie's TV performance in the newspapers of the day of the broadcasting, i.e. 20 June.

Note that such extreme preformulation is rather rare.

One popular way out of all of this is to use quotes in your press release.

If you want to read more on this topic, you can now turn to a full-fledged research article on self-reference in press releases.