I’m just posting this to help media relations folks who have not dealt with me often. Please do not send me information marked “Embargoed.” If you do, and I think it’s interesting, I will break the news. I have not, and will not, agree to an embargo.
Not agreeing to an embargo after the fact is not “breaking” the embargo. Media relations folk should not assume that a reporter will agree to their schedule. First ask, then send the information. (For those not in the industry, an embargo is an agreement to not publish an article about a certain piece of news until a certain time.)
The business of embargoes goes in waves. When I worked at CNET, a reporter would have to get permission (seldom given) to agree to an embargo. For many media professionals, CNET was seen as “breaking embargoes,” but in reality, the PR people were assuming that they could just slap an embargo tag on any press release and reporters would feel pressured into complying.
A lot of reporters — and oddly enough, bloggers — have gotten lazy and will agree to embargoes in order to be able to report the news at the same time as everyone else. Some reporters and bloggers play both sides of the fence, accepting embargoes and then breaking them by minutes or hours. I don’t think that a journalist’s role is to strive to be just as good as the competition, but I also think that PR people have to trust reporters and bloggers.
So, for those media folks, I want to be clear: I do not accept embargoes. Don’t send ‘em to me; I don’t want ‘em.
(As an aside, I think it’s weird that bloggers are complaining that other bloggers are breaking embargoes. Blogs are supposed to be about dredging up news — getting the information from the source or an expert, not a reporter. If that’s the case, then bloggers should not be accepting embargoes either.)