Press releases
JournoHelper tracks press releases from government agencies alongside meeting documents. Releases can arrive automatically from configured feeds or you can add them manually when a city posts off-site or sends you a PDF.
Where press releases come from
Many organizations have a press_release_url configured on their source record. JournoHelper polls those feeds and ingests new releases as they are published — the same monitoring pipeline that pulls agendas and minutes.
Ingested releases appear on your Documents page under Press Releases, grouped with your meeting documents. You do not need to follow a separate "PR only" subscription; following the organization is enough.
Where: In the app: Documents → Press Releases section.
Adding a release manually
Not every announcement lives on a city newsroom page. Use Add press release on the Documents page to paste the full text, optional URL, and publication date. You can attach the release to a jurisdiction and optionally link it to a specific organization.
Manual adds are deduplicated by URL when you provide one. If you leave the URL blank, JournoHelper stores the release with a generated identifier. Title, full text, and date are required.
Where: In the app: Documents → Add press release.
Importing from a URL or file
The add flow also supports fetching text from a public URL or uploading a file when the agency published elsewhere. If extraction fails, paste the body text directly — that always works.
Create Draft (AP-style article)
Open any press release and click Create Draft to generate a first-pass news article in AP style. Like document analysis, drafting costs one AI credit. The output is a starting point — verify names, numbers, and claims against the original release before publishing.
Where: In the app: open a press release → Create Draft.
Alerts for new press releases
When you follow an organization and have alerts enabled, new press releases trigger the same notification pipeline as meeting documents — email, Slack, or digest depending on your cadence settings.
See the Notifications guide for Slack setup and troubleshooting missed alerts.
Where: In the app: Settings → Alert Subscriptions.
Datelines and dates
Each release stores a published_at date, usually parsed from the agency dateline or feed metadata. Manual adds require you to enter the date — we do not guess. Correct dates keep your Documents list sorted and alerts timely.