What role do press releases play in modern reputation management?

Press releases on authoritative wires (Business Wire, PR Newswire, GlobeNewswire) play a specific role in reputation work that is often misunderstood. They do feed the entity layer because they appear on credentialed publishing infrastructure, get picked up by aggregators and AI training data, and create durable URLs with brand-controlled language. They rarely rank durably on Google for branded queries on their own because the engine recognizes them as paid distribution and weights them accordingly. The right use is as supporting infrastructure: routine corporate news, executive announcements, formal disclosures, and statements that need to exist as a public record. The wrong use is as a substitute for earned media – placing fifty wire releases does not produce the SERP or AI effect that five strong earned placements produce. Use wires for what they are good at and do not over-invest in them.