How can a small company distribute a press release to services such as
Yahoo News and Reuters, without hiring a public relations company. 
What is the contact information for an relevant sources

Hello,

You need to contact eReleases:
http://www.ereleases.com/submit.html

According to through their list and their partner's, PRNewswire, list
your press release will be submitted to Yahoo!, MSN.com, AOL.com, News
Alert, Lycos, Alta Vista, Excite and many news sources.  Below is the
link to eReleases's distribution list page.  Please note that
eReleases page does not mention Reuters, but I did some further
research and found that PRNewswire does in fact submit their releases
to Reuters.
http://www.ereleases.com/lists/index.html

You may also find it interesting that you can submit your press
release to Reuters for free.  However, it seems like the eReleases
option would be the better choice.  View Reuters FAQ for more
information:
http://reuters.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/reuters.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=rCUAf4jg&p_lva=&p_faqid=25&p_created=977357913&p_sp=cF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTE0OCZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=

Thanks for the question and if you require more information regarding
my answer, don't hesitate to ask for clarification.  And if you find
this answer satisfactory, please feel free to rate it. Thank you!
              
xemion-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by xemion-ga on 01 Jul 2002 15:32 PDT

Thanks for the rating.  I was just about to post my search strategy
that I forgot to post earlier when I saw it.  I found eReleases by
searching Google for "press releases" (
://www.google.com/search?q=press+release ).  They're link comes
from the Google Adwords Select program.  The rest of the information I
found by directly visited PRNewswire.com and Reuters.com.  Thanks!

xemion-ga

If you are on a tight budget, then you may be interested in a way of
getting your press release carried for free.

M2 Communications offers an email address for free submissions. If
they deem your submission newsworthy, they may choose to publish it
for you in their PressWire service at no charge. From there, it may be
published by Yahoo News, Reuters, or any other news agency that sees
fit to do so. I have had two press releases published for free in this
way, so it is possible you could have similar luck with this method
(but no guarantees, of course)

The free submission e-mail address, which only accepts mail with plain
text and no attachments, is m2pw@m2.com  They also offer a guaranteed
paid placement service, but still no guarantees of getting picked up
by Reuters or Yahoo News.

For information on the PressWire service:
http://www.m2.com/m2/m2web.nsf/1de639cfbe6f447a852568c400783fae/748b8972033e4361802568ef004bb2a6?OpenDocument

Finally, some useful tips on writing your press release:
http://www.quikbiz.com/store/serv_m2_rtg.asp