FacultyDex distinguishes between two related but separate kinds of content. They live on different tabs in the dashboard and the iOS app, and serve different purposes on your published site.
News items — what you publish
Use a news item when you want to announce something: a new paper accepted, a student defending, a workshop your lab is hosting, a position you're hiring for. News items appear on the News page of your site in reverse-chronological order, with the most recent at the top.
Each news item has a title, body content (you can use light formatting), an optional excerpt for previews, an optional image, and an optional external link with custom link text. You control whether each item is published or kept as a draft.
Press mentions — what others wrote about you
Use a press mention when an outside outlet covers your work: a Guardian profile, an NPR interview, a Nature news article. Each press mention links out to the original coverage and shows the outlet name, headline, publication date, and (optionally) a thumbnail and short description.
Press mentions appear on your site in a "Press" or "In the news" section, separate from your own news posts. Visitors can tell at a glance what's a third-party article (press) versus an announcement from you (news).
Adding manually
Both have Add buttons in their respective tabs. Same flow as publications — fill in the fields, save.
Press mentions via autofetch (Pro)
Pro users get automatic press-mention discovery: we periodically scan the web for coverage of your name and lab, and queue plausible matches as pending updates for you to approve. See Approving autofetch updates. Approved press mentions land in the press list automatically.
Pinning
Both news items and press mentions can be pinned. Pinned items appear at the top of their respective lists regardless of date. Use this to keep a flagship piece visible — say, a recent profile in your field's biggest publication.