What News Leads Are Catching Before Corporate Press Releases Go Public

Melissa Strle

Aug 31

5 min read

WHY EXPERIENCED EDITORIAL REVIEW STILL MATTERS AS AI BECOMES MORE COMMON IN CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS

A press release can be grammatically correct and still contain a problem. An incorrect stock ticker may be spelled perfectly. An outdated date may look normal. A paragraph generated with AI may read smoothly while containing an inconsistent name, title or fact. Once distributed, these details matter because corporate information can move quickly across media outlets, financial platforms, search engines, databases and other digital systems.

As AI becomes more common in corporate communications, teams have more tools to help draft, revise and refine press releases. But these tools can also introduce new issues, and many existing problems still require context and judgement to identify.

To explore what this means for the review process, we spoke with four TMX Newsfile News Leads about the issues they encounter in submitted press releases and what automated tools may miss.

Across their responses, a consistent theme emerged: many of the issues that matter most involve accuracy, context, consistency and judgement, not simply spelling or grammar.

Editorial Review Goes Beyond Proofreading

Traditional proofreading focuses on whether the words on the page are correct. Editorial review looks more broadly at whether the information is accurate, consistent and appropriate for distribution.

That can mean checking details such as names, dates and stock tickers, but it can also require judgement about newsworthiness, tone, third-party references and whether the release is structured as a corporate announcement rather than an advertisement, article or blog post.

TMX Newsfile's Editorial Guidelines outline standards covering areas such as newsworthiness, writing quality, credible contact information, unauthorized comparisons, excessive keyword use and prohibited content.

Many of these issues cannot be identified through a spelling or grammar check alone.

A Correct Word Can Still Be the Wrong Information

The News Leads identified a range of seemingly small issues that can affect the accuracy or quality of a corporate announcement.

These include outdated dates carried over from previous releases, inconsistent company or executive names, outdated or incorrectly formatted stock tickers, broken website links, incorrect contact information and placeholders that were never replaced.

An automated checker may see nothing wrong with these details. The words themselves may be spelled correctly and the sentences may be grammatically sound.

An experienced reviewer can look at the release as a whole and identify details that appear inconsistent, outdated or inappropriate in context.

A Press Release Can Be Grammatically Correct and Still Not Be Distribution Ready

AI Has Made Human Review More Important, Not Less

As AI becomes more common in corporate communications, it can help teams draft, revise and organize content more efficiently. But TMX Newsfile's News Leads are also seeing new types of mistakes in AI-assisted submissions.

News Leads identified unfinished placeholders as a recurring issue. Names, job titles, statistics or quote attributions may be left incomplete when AI does not have the information needed to fill them in.

Some signs are more obvious. One of TMX Newsfile's News Leads has encountered releases that still contain conversational text from an AI tool, including instructions such as, “Let me know if you would like me to make any adjustments.”

Other issues are harder to spot.

The News Leads reported inconsistent names or job titles within the same release, repetitive writing that restates the same core point without adding information, and promotional language that can make a release read more like marketing copy than a corporate announcement.

Fluent Writing Is Not the Same as Accurate Disclosure

AI can produce polished language very quickly. That does not mean every detail in the resulting document has been verified.

Names, numbers, dates, titles, stock tickers, quotations and other factual information should still be checked against the company's source material. A release should also be reviewed as a complete document rather than as a collection of individually well-written paragraphs.

This distinction is particularly important in corporate communications. A sentence can sound convincing while still containing an incorrect fact, an inconsistency or information that does not belong in the release.

Context Is Difficult to Automate

Some of the most important editorial decisions involve context rather than grammar.

The value of editorial review goes beyond finding errors. It includes understanding whether the information makes sense in context.

A spelling or grammar tool may not determine whether a headline accurately reflects the announcement. It may not recognize that a company is relying on the name of an unrelated third party to attract attention, or know when promotional language has crossed the line into advertising.

Tone and intent can be even more difficult to assess.

“AI can be very helpful with specific content in a release, but it can have difficulty reading between the lines and understanding tone or intent."

TMX Newsfile News Lead

This becomes particularly important in the grey areas of corporate communications.

A release can contain confident language without being overly promotional. It can mention another organization where that organization is genuinely relevant to the announcement. And it can discuss a disagreement or legal matter without making unsupported or potentially defamatory claims.

Those distinctions require judgement about what the release is actually communicating, not simply whether the individual sentences are technically correct.

Small Omissions Can Have Larger Consequences

Sometimes the most important thing an editor catches is not an error in the release. It is something that appears to be missing.

During a preliminary review of a client's full-year financial results release, a senior TMX Newsfile newsroom specialist noticed that standard advisory sections normally included at the end of the company's annual releases were absent.

The specialist compared the submission with previous releases from the company and flagged the difference.

The client confirmed that the sections had inadvertently been left out of the submitted draft and corrected the release before distribution.

The example illustrates an important aspect of experienced editorial review.

The question is not always, “What is wrong with this document?”

Sometimes it is, “What should be here that isn't?”

This can be difficult for an automated proofreading tool to answer because the missing information does not exist in the document for the tool to assess.

“Spelling and grammar tools can identify errors, but they don't necessarily understand the story. Experienced editorial review adds context and logic.”

TMX Newsfile News Lead

This is particularly relevant for recurring corporate announcements such as financial results, financings, acquisitions and exploration updates, where companies may follow established disclosure formats from one announcement to the next.

Formatting Is Part of Editorial Quality

Editorial review also extends beyond the words themselves.

Corporate press releases can contain financial tables, technical data, photographs, charts, captions, hyperlinks and multiple language versions. These elements need to remain clear and functional as a release moves through distribution channels.

TMX Newsfile's News Leads encounter issues such as tables submitted as images, low-resolution graphics and visuals assembled from multiple elements in a Word document rather than provided as a finished image.

Language and distribution settings add another layer of complexity. A release may be submitted under the wrong language setting, for example, or the selected distribution network may not align with restrictions in the announcement.

These details may not change the wording of a release, but they can affect how the information is presented, where it is distributed and how effectively it reaches its intended audience.

AI, grammar tools and templates can make preparing press releases faster and more efficient. But efficiency does not replace judgement.

The issues identified by TMX Newsfile's News Leads show why experienced editorial review still matters. A polished press release is important, but distribution readiness also requires context, verification and judgement.