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Marketing Academy · Field Work●PR & Communications
All projects·From: Building a Press Kit That Journalists Actually Use
MiniAudit· 30 minutes

Audit a Press Kit Before It Goes Live

Duolingo

Objective: Given a description of an existing company press kit page, evaluate it against the lesson's checklist of what belongs in a press kit and how it should be hosted, then produce a prioritized fix list.

You're a freelance PR consultant reviewing Duolingo's press kit page before a product-launch media push, checking whether it will actually hold up under journalist use.

Walk through the current press kit against the lesson's checklist, flag what's missing or wrong, and rank fixes by how much they'll cost the team in missed coverage if left unfixed.

Before you start

What you'll need

Free path (everything below is enough to finish)

Google Sheets
FreeBuild and prioritize the audit checklist

Free, simple structured tracking with no account friction

The process

2 steps

Step 01 of 02

What belongs in a press kit

The lesson lists the core press kit components: company boilerplate, executive bios and headshots, product screenshots or photos, logo files in multiple formats, recent press coverage, and key facts/stats.

The current kit has a company boilerplate, one blurry founder headshot from 2018, and no logo files at all. What's missing and what's actively broken?

Google Sheets— Build a checklist with columns: component, present/missing, quality issue, priority.

Procedure

  1. List every component the lesson says belongs in a press kit
  2. Mark each as present, missing, or present-but-broken
  3. Note specific quality issues (outdated, wrong format, low resolution)
  4. Rank each gap by priority based on how often journalists would need it
Sample output
Component            Status      Issue                          Priority
Boilerplate           Present     Fine as-is                    Low
Exec headshots        Broken      2018 photo, low-res, 1 person Medium
Logo files            Missing     No SVG/PNG download at all    High
Product screenshots   Missing     None provided                 High
Recent coverage       Missing     No press-mentions page        Medium

Healthy

Every core component is present, current, and in a usable file format.

Unhealthy

A journalist has to email the company just to get a usable logo file.

What this means

Missing logo files and screenshots are the highest-priority gaps because they're the assets journalists need fastest, on deadline, without contacting anyone.

So what do I do about it?

SymptomActionEffort
No downloadable logo files exist on the kit pageUpload SVG and PNG logo files (light and dark background versions) to the kit immediately30 min
YouYou can do this yourself, no engineering access required.

Step 02 of 02

Why hosting format determines whether journalists actually use a kit

The lesson explains that a single downloadable PDF press kit loses to a web page: PDFs go stale, can't be linked to a specific asset, and are painful to update, while a web page lets a journalist grab exactly the file they need and stays current.

The current press kit is a single PDF last updated 14 months ago, linked from a 'Press' footer link. What's wrong with this setup?

Google Sheets— Same sheet, second tab for hosting-format issues.

Procedure

  1. Check when the PDF was last updated relative to the company's most recent news
  2. Check whether individual assets (logo, one headshot) can be downloaded separately or only as one bundled file
  3. Check how discoverable the press kit link is from the homepage
Sample output
Hosting format: single PDF, last updated 14 months ago
Issue 1: Company has raised funding and launched 2 products since last update, none reflected
Issue 2: Journalist wanting just the logo must download the entire 40MB PDF
Issue 3: Press kit link buried in footer, not in main nav

Healthy

A web page with individually downloadable assets, updated within the last quarter, linked from primary navigation.

Unhealthy

A single stale PDF bundling everything together, discoverable only by scrolling to the footer.

What this means

A PDF-only kit fails the moment the company has news the kit doesn't reflect yet, which is exactly when journalists look for it.

So what do I do about it?

SymptomActionEffort
The kit is a single PDF older than the company's most recent newsMigrate to a web page with individually downloadable assets and update it same-day with any major newshalf day
YouYou can do this yourself, no engineering access required.

Final deliverable

A prioritized audit checklist of press kit gaps, split between content gaps and hosting-format gaps, each with a specific fix.

See a reference example
Sample output
Robinhood press kit audit (excerpt)

CONTENT GAPS
  HIGH     No product screenshots available for download
  MEDIUM   Exec bios have no titles listed, just names

HOSTING GAPS
  HIGH     Kit is a single 60MB PDF, not a web page
  LOW      Press kit link uses generic anchor text 'Media' instead of 'Press Kit'

Success criteria

You're done when you can:

  • Identifies at least 4 missing or broken content components
  • Identifies the PDF-vs-web-page hosting problem and explains why it matters
  • Assigns a clear priority to each flagged gap