Lead

Just like in newspaper articles, the first paragraph of a press release serves as a lead, indicating - between brackets - the place and date of the news and answering various journalistic WH-questions:

  • what's the news?
  • who's involved?
  • when and where and how did it happen?

Leads are often printed in bold or in italics. Here's an example:

CHICAGO, 2 December 2003 -- Heitman LLC, a multi-national real estate investment management firm, today announced the creation of Crescent Euro Industrial II LLC ('CEI-2'). CEI-2 will invest approximately euro 300 million (US$350 million) in warehouse / distribution and logistics properties in France, Germany and Italy. In addition, Heitman announced the opening of an office in Frankfurt as an expansion of its extensive European infrastructure.