# Press review: Definition, structure and copyright

What a press review is, how it is structured and produced, which licences apply in Germany and the UK, and how it differs from media content analysis.

**A press review is a compiled set of press articles and other media coverage about a company, organisation or topic. It keeps employees, executives or members regularly informed about what the media have published.**

Press reviews have been around for as long as press offices. Someone used to read the morning papers, cut out the relevant articles, photocopy them and send them round the building. Today the review usually arrives as a PDF by email, on the intranet or in an online portal. The job has not changed: people who make decisions should see quickly what was reported about the organisation, its competitors and its issues.

In German-speaking countries the format is called a Pressespiegel and is a fixed part of corporate communications. In English the terms vary. Press review, media digest, press digest and clipping report are all in use.

## Typical structure of a press review

Most press reviews follow a fixed layout so readers can find their way around:

1. **Cover page** with title, period covered and distribution list.
2. **Table of contents** listing headline, outlet, date and page for each item.
3. **Clippings**, the actual articles as cut-outs, scans, screenshots or links, each with its source. See [press clipping](/en/glossary/press-clipping).
4. **Summary** of the most important coverage, often a few sentences per topic.

Here is how a weekly press review might be organised:

| Section             | Content                                     | Example                                    |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| Cover               | Title, week, distribution list              | Press review week 45, board and comms team |
| Key points          | Three to five takeaways from the week       | CEO interview in the business pages        |
| Our organisation    | Coverage that mentions the organisation     | Report on a new site opening               |
| Competitors         | Coverage of selected competitors            | Product launch by a competitor             |
| Industry and issues | Coverage of topics that affect the business | Draft legislation, market figures          |
| Index               | Outlet, date, author, page or URL           | Daily newspaper, 5 Nov, page 12            |

## Internal and external distribution

Most press reviews are internal documents for the board, management, departments or the members of an association. PR agencies also compile press reviews for clients. Legally that is a different case. Passing articles to people outside your own organisation usually requires additional rights. In the UK, for example, the government's licence finder notes that PR agencies and media monitoring agencies that supply newspaper or magazine content to clients need a different licence from the standard business licence.

## Print and digital

A print press review is copied and handed out on paper. A digital press review is sent by email or published on an intranet. Digital reviews often also include online articles, broadcast segments, podcasts and social posts.

## How press reviews are produced today

There are two routes. The manual route means the team searches for coverage, collects links and scans and assembles the document in Word or PowerPoint. In our [2022 survey of more than 1,000 PR professionals](/en/blog/how-do-pr-professionals-create-clipping-reports) in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, more than half still worked this way. The other route uses [media monitoring](/en/glossary/media-monitoring): a service or tool finds coverage based on search terms, and the review is built from those results. Someone still has to decide what goes in.

## Copyright and licensing

Press articles are protected by copyright. Copying, scanning or circulating them, even internally, needs permission from the law or from a licence. The rules differ by country. Permission to distribute articles in a press review does not automatically cover processing them with AI, so check which rights your licence covers.

### Germany

[Section 49 of the German Copyright Act](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_urhg/englisch_urhg.html#p1260) allows individual newspaper articles on current political, economic or religious issues to be reproduced and distributed, provided they carry no reservation of rights. The author must generally be paid equitable remuneration, and only a collecting society can claim it. For press reviews that is VG WORT. No remuneration is due for short extracts from several articles compiled as an overview (Section 49(1), second sentence), and miscellaneous factual news and news of the day may be used freely (Section 49(2)). Scientific, purely technical and cultural articles are not covered by Section 49.

The Federal Court of Justice ruled in 2002 (case I ZR 255/00) that this exception can also apply to electronic press reviews, but within narrow limits. According to an article published by the German PR association DPRG, articles may only be distributed as a graphic image of the original and kept for at most seven days, with no archiving.

Anything beyond that needs permission from the publishers. You can license directly from individual publishers. German publishers also set up PMG Presse-Monitor as a central body and authorised it to license press review use. According to VG WORT, protected articles that require remuneration and fall under the electronic press review arrangement must be reported to and paid for through PMG, which also collects the statutory Section 49 remuneration on VG WORT's behalf.

### United Kingdom

In the UK, copying newspaper or magazine content generally needs permission from the rights holder or an applicable licence, unless a copyright exception applies. NLA Media Access licenses businesses to copy content for internal use, but only for the titles it represents. Businesses can also license directly with publishers; according to the [government's licence finder](https://www.gov.uk/find-licences/newspaper-licensing-agency-business-licence), a business licensed directly with the relevant publishers does not need the NLA licence.

## Press review vs. media content analysis

A press review mainly documents coverage. It shows what was published and can include editorial summaries, but it does not code articles systematically. A [media content analysis](/en/glossary/media-content-analysis) evaluates the coverage: it counts items and measures reach, tone and share of voice. The AMEC evaluation taxonomy classes these metrics as outputs, separate from outcomes such as changes in attitude or trust. A press review answers "what was reported?". An analysis answers "what does it mean for us?". Both are usually built from the same clippings.

## Press reviews with aclipp

aclipp collects clippings through global online monitoring across more than 150 million sources and through your own imports, such as links or files. You turn those clippings into press reviews and [PR reports](/en/reporting) and add metrics such as reach and tone. Read more about [media monitoring](/en/media-monitoring) or see [how to create the perfect PR report](/en/blog/how-to-create-the-perfect-pr-report).