Press releases from private and public officials in efforts to communicate with its residents and customers is used by many entities as well as government agencies. There are many types of press releases that various entities utilize. Law enforcement agencies, police and sheriff departments offer some of their services online such as reports of incidents, accidents and arrests along with other messages to the public. Many alerts are also sent out via internet such as Amber alerts, missing children/persons, most wanted and other messages out to people living in and surrounding areas.

These press releases are not always found readily online with a simple search engine query. Starting a search with the city's own official website will list various agencies and contact information. In some cases you can directly link the external sites where you can view the press releases by date. Recently, many agencies due to budget retrains, no longer maintain a website of their own so you may only have the city website to use or vise versa, where there are no city websites so a search has to be conducted of the individual agency's.

Council meetings and information of their minutes are amongst the many recorded documents found directly on city websites. The city clerk's office is usually the department that records, maintains and responds to the public's request for documents. In addition to council meetings and minutes, the clerk's role within the city where appointed or elected, is in some cases also in charge of deeds, vital records such as birth, death and marriage certificates, city hall records, voter services and other documents.

Many voters try to find out more about elections and their candidates, schedules, upcoming events and following the campaign. It is common to have the search for this information begin at the state level with the secretary of state's resources. As the secretary of state has many great and worthy services, directly accessing the city's, county of locality's site where the official is serving can link you to the person itself and their contact information. It is also an easy way to find the official's press releases from the office itself. Many of these press releases will reveal a candidate's policies and stance on certain issues. News and media can differ from one story to another, however, there's only one official site with the particular candidate's own words in its entirety.

When a city's website can not be found, another step that can be taken is by looking up the county's services that may be lieu of the locality's. Polling information can be found at the county and state voter elections clerk, in most cases secretary of state, voter registrar's office or any other named agency in charged of voting services appointed by the state.