Late last year I announced a new policy at TechCrunch – we don’t do embargoes. Well, it was a little more complicated than that, and designed to stir up chaos in the PR ranks. We said we’d break every embargo, and we also said we’d honor embargoes for exclusives plus a few select companies, particularly Microsoft and Google, because they had proven to be reliable. Overall, we meant to be confusing, and we were.
Embargoed news, if you aren’t familiar with the term: a company wants to announce news, like a product launch or a new funding. They brief lots of press with a stated day and time for the news to break. Press agrees not to write before that time. But generally someone goes early, with a really good excuse like a time stamp software problem, and then everyone floods out with the news. Whoever broke the story in the first place generally gets more eyeballs and attention than the others, so there are lots of incentives for mistakes. Particularly because no one ever punishes the offenders.
A lot of people said our new policy would be the death of TechCrunch. We’ve more than doubled our readership and page views since then, so with the benefit of hindsight I disagree. But what’s interesting is that since that post the embargo culture in the tech news world has essentially crumbled. Chaos rules, and even the once great Microsoft and Google have fallen.
This is a good thing for readers.
Earlier this year the Wall Street Journal also implemented a no embargo policy unless they get an exclusive, mirroring our position. People freaked out. In June a Microsoft embargo for Microsoft Hohm broke early (that was VentureBeat, a wonderfully repeat offender – last year they once broke every embargo for a week and then claimed it was a daylight saving issue or something).
That left Google as the sole company with the clout to force press to stick to embargoes. This morning, with Google Sidewiki, Google stumbled. PaidContent, who unfortunately are sticklers for sticking to embargoes, went hours early, way before the product was even live. I wasted three hours testing and writing about that product last night, so you can imagine my happiness at the news chaos was tempered somewhat by my frustration at bothering to wait on my post. I should have published at 2:30 am, when I was done for the night.
With Google and Microsoft no longer able to hold embargoes, there really isn’t much left to do but abandon the whole practice. I, for one, am happy about that.
Update: VentureBeat founder Matt Marshall responds in the comments below:
Okay, but then no accusing Palm, or other companies, of not wanting to give you guys review devices for “shady” reasons.
That had nothing to do with embargoes, they just don’t like our coverage of them.
They should love any coverage.
oh, Palm is super shady. not Apple shady, but shady.
Well, I guess that Arrington gets the “best techcrunch comment ever” award.
Would that be on a slim shady palm phone ?
That’s because Palm is largely Apple folks anyway. Even their PR worked at Apple. But that reminds me I need to return my Palm Pre they sent me.
After TC leaked the stolen Twitter documents, would anyone expect them to have any sort of media dignity anyways?
In case you don’t remember, Twitter worked with TC to put it out right knowing that someone else would get them and release them without caution.
Even worse.
Please publish this comment at 9:00 AM 9/24/2009
Ha!
LOL.
Here’s 10 ways to screw up Techcrunch’s embargo policy: http://scobleiz...embargo-policy/
I thought this was going to be a post about a new Transformers movie!
that movie was really, really bad.
The theater I went to had it playing for a dollar.
One dollar to enter. Eight dollars to exit.
That is the most scathing review I have heard of any movie ever. Congratulations.
i thought it was going to be about Cuba
Tomas Sancio (see below) said that too.
Same here. Wasn’t disappointed though. Good for TC.
So does this finally end the “Is the Press Release dead” (in current form) debate?
Here’s the conundrum: people want to consume news from multiple sources. Not 100% of the population goes to any one news source. This means its inherently a disservice to *not* get news to multiple news organizations.
With no embargo, there’s virtually no way for a company to get its news to multiple outlets. The company can either (a) pick ONE source, or (b) issue the news at the moment they choose, and leave the news-breakers to decide what they want to do about it.
In scenario (b), the likely outcome would be one or two outlets covering, the rest skipping (especially once they see others writing).
So now we are stuck with those consuming news having LESS places to get their news. Unless of course the news is “big news”, which pretty much binds most outlets to covering it anyway.
Which all leads me to continue believing that embargoes WHEN DONE RIGHT are overall a better mechanism of distributing news content than not. It’s the ones that are bad (as you mention above) that screw it up for everyone…
Counterpoint?
counterpoint – they write the news on their own blog with lots of videos and other information for press to digest and then write their own stories. it works. and it’s not like the bias in their blog posts isn’t there in the pre-briefing anyway.
most people in pr are going to say that because it gets them more clips, which is how they show value. it’s a stretch to say that helps the reader.
i disagree with the assumption that people want to consume news from multiple sources. it’s easier to get it all from one place. how else do you explain the popularity of aggregators like techmeme and the historical old media doctrine of being a publication-of-record? most people i know read one site/paper/magazine per vertical.
embargoes help smaller sites more than bigger ones, and i say that as a reporter who’s written for both. bigger sites are almost always bigger because of hard work and quality. why shouldn’t they demand exclusives? news should be every bit as much of a free market as any other sector of the economy. if you want to be on techcrunch, give us an exclusive. if not, well, we should do a better job to make sure you do. simple as that.
Wanting news from multiple sources and using an aggregator are somehow mutually exclusive?
What are you talking about?
No one reading Techcrunch also reads RWW, Om etc?
C’mon.
Oh, you’re right, I only have one news source. Twitter.
Embargoes help everyone because it saves the publisher the massive headache of apologizing repeatedly to everyone else that wasn’t first.
[...] i DISAGREE with the assumption that people want to consume news from MULTIPLE SOURCES. it’s easier to get it all from one place. how else do you explain the popularity of AGGREGATORS [...]
And where do these aggregated news come from, if not multiple sources ?
“Aggregator = A service that gathers information published by DIFFERENT WEBSITES / MULTIPLE SOURCES…”
Aggregators are not proof that people want their news from one source. It’s proof that people want news from many sources, but filtered and fed to one place. You’re confusing the channel with the content.
I set my aggregator up with BBC, Faux, the Nation, WSJ, NPR specifically so I don’t have to go all over the Net to get my many perspectives.
Breaking an embargo is great – it makes people EARN their media coverage instead more. And although fewer writers may cover your news, the writers who do get the chance to differentiate themselves on insight and actual thought, instead of spitting out pre-packaged blurbs.
Let the reader/ consumer decide what they’ll go for – that’s kinda the whole point of web 2.0 journalism and marketing – PULL.
Sarah,
It’s the SHIFT key.
You’ll find them on the left and right of the keyboard, near the bottom.
You’re welcome.
counterpoint is that usually only ‘friendly’ media is pre-briefed (see Apple -> NYtimes, TC -> Palm). which is a conflict in itself (ie. wont be negative because i want the next pre-brief). the very nature of an embargo is to prevent the free flow of information.
It won’t be long before we see companies properly producing their own news sites that they’ll use for most of their announcements, saving one or two key ones for an ‘exclusive’. Many in the mobile marketplace already have their own blog for this purpose but it’s the mobile manufacturers and operators that are really beginning to take note. For example, Orange UK already does it’s own unboxings and phone feature reviews which it publishes on it’s own blog, often not bothering with an embargo. The just publish. Nokia too, often announces news online via it’s own site — controlling the message (to some degree, at least in the first instance) and ensuring that both the ‘professional’ and the interested man-on-the-street get the original news from them at the same time. And then it’s up to the news sites like us here at Mobile Industry Review to do something about it. That is, get hold of the product or service and produce a decent review that garners more attention, more hits, more kudos than anyone else. Or simply cover it as it happens, embed the supplied video and move on.
Interesting times ahead.
Ewan, I agree and think this is a good model (as Arrington points out above).
The companies post on their blog when they’re ready to publish – no “sorry you weren’t first”, no flirting for positive reviews, just your company’s spin.
The news services either had an early exclusive, or they watch the company blogs like hawks, and parse the spin, compare it with other sources and previous models/reviews, and issue their take.
We as consumers browse the tech blogs to get their researched, thoughtful, insider take on the market. We put our clicks on the perspectives we value the most, which benefits them.
Everyone wins. So buh-bye embargoes – consumers didn’t need you.
Aye bring it on John!
Interesting, I would rather have the right news than the early still-not news news! (PaidContent would have got lots of negative points in my book since the feature they talked about wasn’t really there)
yeah people say that but it doesn’t work out that way.
i agree with you Michael. Even if it got negative points for few hours but the next time some of the readers will definitely go there searching for the new *unreleased* news!
but that is how the press industry is.. isnt it?
Listen, if Techcrunch won’t honor embargoes, then don’t. You already said that’s your policy some time ago. And that’s fine. That’s your prerogative. Live by it and get on with it. What I don’t understand is why you keep bringing this up? Is it that you’ve discovered you can’t stick to your policy, that if you swear off embargoes you end up behind the 8 ball and late on stories that are important? So you want the tech press in general to rally behind you? Because that’s not going to happen. You see, when you decide to skip embargoes, that means you’re going to be late on the stories unless you scoop them. That’s the difficult part, ain’t it? Good luck with that.
This is really inside baseball stuff between journalists and PR people.
So will TechCrunch still keep embargoes if given exclusivity?
sure. sometimes.
Can we get that in writing?
sure. at some point.
I guess the better question is will you tell the company beforehand if you’ll honor their request for embargo or not?
The more likely scenario being that companies giving TechCrunch an exclusive would wait until they wanted the news to break to tell TechCrunch.
we have relationships that we respect.
I thought the post was about Cuba.
I thought he was going back to the iPhone….
TechCrunch is anti-Cuba – or was that Brazil?
hard to keep up. we need an app for that
iCarumba
+1
By the time the Crunchpad is released, Cuba will be a free country.
Why so serious ………. Michael?
There will be more new products and more embargoes…
OK Mike, I agree you can start covering StuffBuff starting now I am lifting all embargoes.
Awesome!
Next up: Rules that reporters can’t write about what they see at the White House.
http://www.sco....-ok-to-lie.html
Readership = Power. Simple. You should have published it at 2:30AM. TechCrunch has a reputation for being on the cutting edge of news, you built that, now protect it.
It’s all fun & games til someone puts an eye out.
“This is a good thing for readers.”
I disagree. When only one outlet covers the news, be it the WSJ or TC, or whoever has the exclusive, the readers lose. They only get the news with one publication’s take on it, rather than differing points of view.
Also, the outlet that has the exclusive will (maybe even subconsciously) view the news with rose colored lenses because their ego is stroked since they were ‘chosen’.
This point about readers losing when only one outlet covers is important.
I get my news from different sources throughout the day. I expect different insight from each source based on each outlet’s expertise (and each reporter’s/blogger’s individual perspective).
So, when I see news in TechCrunch, I don’t expect it to read the same as it would on ReadWriteWeb. Nor should I. Both write for slightly different audiences. When I read a story about an international event in The New York Times, I expect coverage of that same event in The Wall Street Journal to educate me differently (or at least add to my knowledge).
If something is really newsworthy, multiple outlets will/should cover it and apply their individual perspectives/insight to it. If it isn’t really that newsworthy, but still a story worth telling, then it should be targeted to an individual or small number of outlets; or, as Mike A. points out above, the company should publish its own content. As a reader, reading the first story isn’t as important to me as reading the right story (but then again, as a reader I don’t have to worry about keeping the lights on).
Others can still cover it and give their contrasting points of view when the news becomes public.
no, the utter choas in the PR world is good for readers. techcrunch exclusives are also good for readers, i just need some time to work out why.
Exclusives are good for readers (TC or RWW or any other outlet). Similar to Josh’s point about the benefit of having time to research and let the story gel. We become regular readers of outlets because they inform us, they make us smarter. When the need for speed gets in the way of the responsibility to inform, the reader loses (as does, ultimately, the outlet).
I prefer news from company blogs, I read TC mainly for tech related entertainment
Unless it’s an exclusive, embargoes are just begging to be broken. You’re asking a bunch of competing news sources not to do something that would give them a serious edge.
It’s like putting Bill Belichick and a camcorder on the same sideline. To hell with the rules – whatever wins the game.
the messenger wants attention!
Yeah. Because they monetize attention.
Here’s what’s going to happen: Most news outlets will continue to agree to embargoes, and those who don’t will find out about announcements when the companies make them public. After TechCrunch is late on a few big announcements, it will fall back in line and again agree to most embargoes.
yes, just like in the last year. or not.
lets face it 75% of TC is Twitter crap. Would we know the difference ?
Embargoes are good for readers. Here’s why:
You said yourself, Mike, that being first matters. With the insanely shortened news cycle that we deal with now, getting a story out early is important in terms of traffic, which is important in terms of revenue. No one wants to read about a story two hours after they already heard it somewhere else (with the exception, perhaps, of brilliant editorial commentary).
Embargoes give reporters time. Time to think critically about an announcement, time to really try out a piece of new software, time to dig deeper into a news item. Similarly, pre-briefs under embargo give the reporter time to formulate, ask, and receive answers to questions that add value to their coverage. The result, if the reporter does their job, is a better product for the reader. Embargoes level the playing field and let reporters focus on QUALITY over SPEED.
Having no embargoes, however, results in a mad dash to be first — because being first matters, remember. That means sloppier reporting, less in-depth coverage, and a poor result for readers.
Without embargoes, because of the way the economics of Internet news works, readers will generally lose more often than they win.
“with the exception, perhaps, of brilliant editorial commentary”.
exactly, nobody is reading it because they all push out the same PR bullshit. I would argue for more ‘brilliant editorial commentary’
I agree. The ultimate proof of that is when the power gadget sites are covering the “ultra hot product” they all know will make or break their rep if they are not first to get out the story (E.g. – iPhone). Then they sometimes break all the rules trying to get it out first. This leads to a swarm of erroneous feature reports, company policy misprints, and more all of which gets repeated endlessly by the blogosphere until it’s assumed to be fact. This leads people to think “Hell I just read on at least a 100 different sites that the latest iPhone gets a Blue Screen Of Death if you type in “TechCrunch” in an edit box, it must be true!”
Yep, that’s something that most bloggers don’t understand.
The culture of speed, the loss of embargoes, the first-out-of-the-door mentality of today’s online editorial sites will in the end, result in poorer journalism, less accurate reporting, less balanced viewpoints, less analysis, and less contextual information. As a journalist, the value of the embargo to me is being able to ask well-researched questions (which take time to formulate) and write in-depth analysis.
This is bad for the reader, surely?
I’m in PR and I’m not a fan of embargoes. If the release is actually news it gets picked up in a timely manner since everyone wants to be the first to get it published.
If you’re giving someone an exclusive, that usually takes time anyway since exclusives are typically more in-depth. In any scenario where there is an exclusive, the publication isn’t going to fire off a half-cocked report of something that has the potential to make a much bigger splash.
I think it’s more fair (and less confusing) to end embargoes across the board. It’s better for readers and easier to manage expectations inside companies. In PR when you hit send, it’s really out of your control anyway.
I was the author of the paidContent post and, for the record, made the mistake of setting it to automatically open at 8 am ET instead of 8 am PT (as you can see from the time stamp). Before anybody gets too carried away here, we have not changed our policy on embargoes.
– Joe Tartakoff
right. stick to that story, it’s a good one.
Whats the punishment for your mistake?
This time zone ‘mistake’ happens all the time. Back when we honored embargoes (and I was the guy who covered most of them) a PST/EST screwup was usually to blame. It happens too often for all of them to be honest mistakes.
Yes, it’s easy to get confused. But you screw up once in your first few months as a writer, and then you double check it every time after that, especially on a big story like this.
It’s entirely possible that Joe really did just have a lapse, but you hear this enough times and can’t help but roll your eyes.
Next thing you know they will be saying that they have an overseas branch on the international date line, and they accidentally set the time to that…. LOL.
I believe that mistakes happen all the time. However, if the embargo is in place especially with major announcements, then journalists have to take into consideration of the impact that will have on outreach. It’s like dominoes effect. However, the embargo goes so far. In my recent post titled PR Embargo: Dead or Alive? Or, Does it Really Matter http://cindykim...g.wordpress.com that it’s really up to the businesses to decide how to disseminate information and work outreach into the mix is critical. They have to take into consideration various scenarious and find different unique tactics to ensure coverage. This is an interesting article that begs the question of something that’s been debated for quite some time and puts it into perspective. Also, PR professionals shouldn’t solely rely on that to get maximum coverage. My thoughts.
Can’t say I blame you here Mike.
When PR companies don’t hold people accountable when an embargo is broken, what’s the point in having an embargo at all.
Perhaps another counterpoint.
Maybe the embargo is dead as we used to know it, but not entirely. Case in point, the recent news around Rhapsody being both approved and available on the iPhone.
A couple thoughts on that product launch:
We pre-briefed a number of journalists and asked them to hold the news until we were sure the app would be available in the App Store for consumers to download. One outlet we did not pre-brief under embargo was TechCrunch. That was a deliberate decision because Mike made their stance on embargoes very clear. In this instance we felt like a multi-outlet media strategy was the best way to go, vs. something like a TechCrunch exclusive and letting other outlets rush to catch up.
Would we have liked TechCrunch to cover the Rhapsody app (especially given all their coverage of Spotify)? Sure. But since we didn’t pre-brief them it came as no surprise that there was no coverage here as the news broke. This was the trade-off we had to make and be willing to live with.
And guess what, someone DID publish prior to the embargo. It appeared to be an honest mistake and since it was w/in a couple hours of the intended embargo time, the news cycle ran as expected despite the error. We scrambled to let other outlets know about the broken embargo and they seemed to be understanding. However, it is our job protect the journalists we work with next time around and consider whether we give the offending outlet the opportunity to be part of the embargo process.
The embargo strategy comes with many potential pitfalls, but is manageable if you’re willing to deal with the trade-offs.
Here’s the rub: If the Rhapsody news was relevant to TechCrunch’s readers, not covering it because of a policy of not being first becomes a disservice to those readers, no? While speed is important from a business perspective (no argument there), isn’t content equally as important and part of the overall mission of a media outlet? TechCrunch not covering the Rhapsody news was, in effect, their way of saying that the news wasn’t important enough for their readers.
Except TC did cover the news of Rhapsody submitting the same app for approval just a couple weeks earlier. Later in the week I traded emails with Leena on the topic, so there was obviously some level of interest in the subject.
That said, still not surprised that TC decided not to cover the news. That particular week there was plenty of news in the tech industry to cover.
Thing is, you probably won’t do anything to the publication that broke the embargo (especially if it’s one of the larger ones). Maybe you’ll make them super-duper promise to hold to it. Or you’ll cut them out of the next release, but they’ll be back in for the one after that. Nothing that will make them think twice before doing it again.
I’ve seen companies sic lawyers, pull advertising dollars, and frequently scare the heck out of people that break embargoes (seen, not experienced first hand but have verifiable anecdotes). I must live in the gulag section of the tech writing world.
You’re right, Jason. We are definitely limited in ways to reprimand any outlets/journalists who break an embargo.
I just hope this doesn’t mean we’ll see more Apple copy cats and set-up a press ‘event’ for every minor product launch.
For Microsoft, no press information before the actual launch worked for ZuneHD – where the device didn’t work until the site went live at launch. It meant that the reviews (mostly positive) trickled in over the following week and kept the product in the news. Maybe this is a sign of things to come.
Embargoes dead? How come more corks are not popping around here? Let’s celebrate people…
They’re not dead. I’ve been under a few of them already over the last year. But a mega powerful tech blog like TechCrunch is like the Sun and light rays. You have so much gravitational pull you literally bend the shape of the universe around you and alter its physical laws. The rest of us middle to smaller guys still live in the old universe and have to play by the rules.
Maybe I’m clueless here but is there more to releasing something in today’s world than just sending out an email to a list of press folks with the appropriate PDF’s, whitepages, etc attached? Maybe I just don’t understand PR…
To follow up. Couldn’t they just choose to send out said email at the exact time they are ready to release the news? That way, everyone gets it all at once and then they can decide what they want to do with it.
its called an announcement. and it works.
Yes, evidently you may indeed be clueless or else you just can’t read. Go back and read through this thread (or have someone read it to you) and you will be able to answer your own questions.
Does this mean that if I tell you guys something, and tell you to keep it secret, you’ll publish it anyway? I could use a bit of press at the moment and this sounds like a fun way to get it… ;D
Embargoes made sense in the old days when PR firms had to give journalists time to write by hand or type their news stories while glancing at the press release.
But now that you can just cut and paste the press release on your computer from email or the web, there’s no need for any lead time.
So, are you whining because you weren’t the first one to break the embargo? Or post the story?
I don’t get it. It’s like you’re supposed to be the only tech blog in the universe that’s first with news. You PWN stories, even if you’re not first with them.
You really are like a temperamental two-year-old.
pretty much.
As a long time reader, I applaud TC for continued growth, though I think you do yourselves and your readers a disservice by automatically refusing to consider embargoed stories. If an agency is known to not manage their embargoes well, then by all means, don’t take them up on their offer.
I also don’t know how you can rationalize your thinking by honoring exclusives but not embargoes. There are two important elements to a great news story: 1. Timeliness. 2. Quality and depth. If you do #1 without #2, you don’t serve readers. Embargoes allow you to do both. Embargoes give reporters a chance to do their best work and compete on quality, not unfair advantage.
My agency managed a big embargoed announcement last month, and the result was in-depth stories in VentureBeat, BNET, Wired.com, Publisher’s Weekly, ReadWriteWeb and others. Each story was unique and well-researched, reflecting the writer’s own voice and knowledge. Each reporter and their readership benefited from this well-managed embargo. And yes, the client benefited as well. Win/Win/Win all around.
Might TC have wanted this story? Maybe, maybe not. We didn’t give TC the option to consider it due to this policy.
Hang the bad seeds by their balls, tar and feathered, but by all means don’t demonize an entire profession or practice based on the bad deeds of a few.
Mark Coker
Founder
Dovetail Public Relations
&
Smashwords
We tried, but there were too many bad seeds.
Jason, since this is a relationship business, be open to developing relationships, give folks a chance to prove themselves, and if they screw you, you know their true colors.
It’s also a fair question for the reporter to ask the PR person what their process is for managing an embargoed announcements.
Maybe what’s needed here is for media and PR people to work together in partnership to develop an industry-standard, best practices “Embargo Code of Conduct.” Here’s my stab at a strawman:
1. PR person clearly identifies embargo dates and time and time zone.
2. PR person and their client agrees to honor the embargo, and not strike side deals.
3. Reporter clearly agrees to honor the embargo before they receive the embargoed press release, and before they receive a full briefing.
4. Likewise, a PR person does not distribute an embargoed release to anyone without first securing their acknowledgment and acceptance of the embargo.
5. As a good faith measure, the PR person reminds the reporter verbally and in writing, before and after the briefing, that the news is embargoed until XXX time. Likewise, if the PR person fails to make a reminder before or after, but they clearly made and received an embargoed agreement at the start, the reporter agrees that such failure to remind doesn’t entitle them to break the embargo.
6. The press release clearly states “Embargoed until XXX time” above the headline.
7. In the worst case scenario where an embargo is broken, the PR team agrees to immediately contact all participating reporters via voice and email, honestly informs them of the situation and how it happened, and gives reporters option of dropping their story altogether or running it early.
8. PR agency commits that all reporters who have broken previous embargoes managed to the above process, will not be included in future embargoed announcements for XX months.
To take this a step further and assist transparency for the benefit of media and PR people alike, someone could create a open message forum or blog or directory where embargo breakers are identified, as well as the agencies who failed to properly manage their embargo. Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant.
Tell you what Mike, I’ll happily agree to an embargo on any details of the Crunchpad you show me pre-launch.
I’m guessing, however, that you plan to do what you noted above and I’m SOL and won’t get to preview the device:
“counterpoint – they write the news on their own blog with lots of videos and other information for press to digest and then write their own stories. it works. and it’s not like the bias in their blog posts isn’t there in the pre-briefing anyway.”
I really like this discussion. And I *really* like the notion of *Mike Arrington* calling Palm shady.
I thought only Slim was shady.
“Google Steps Where Many Have Stumbled: Sidewiki”
“This morning, with Google Sidewiki, Google stumbled.”
Make up your mind!
The new Techcrunch dress code:
-fedora
-long coat
-pen & notepad
-cigarette
-hand gun
-raspy voice
I’m sorry, you’re paid for what again? I mean, pay me and I’ll do your job embargo or not…
Global Impact = Zero
Mike, the comment about VentureBeat being a repeat offender in your story just isn’t fair. As I told you at the time, Wordpress — the software we use — doesn’t accommodate reflect daylight savings, and so we were breaking embargoes for a few days without even knowing it (we’d schedule stories for 9pm, but it would publish at 8pm). Bottom line: VentureBeat still hold to embargoes. Hohm, meanwhile, was a complete misunderstanding.
Matt Marshall
Editor
VentureBeat
as Mike said to the author of the PaidContent article – good story… keep to it.
Oh, and if you check with Microsoft, you’ll find that we actually pulled the Hohm story when we found out about the mis-understanding. Ask any source about any so-called broken embargo by VentureBeat, and you’ll find that it just doesn’t happen.
As a blog reader I don’t care if Gizmodo beats Om or TC beats VentureBeat, most people read news throughout the day/week and thanks the the 100% awesome Techmeme we get to see multiple source links all at once.
As someone about to celebrate 7 years of blogging, embargo’s frustrate me. I get stuff a week in advance and then sometimes forget about it and then the company complains. [Insert David Pogue "I am not a journalist" .wav file here].
Embargos don’t suck nearly as much as NDA’s. I’d like to hear you rant about them.
It does make a difference, and you could see it with PaidContent. They got out first. By the middle of the day, they were the main story on Techmeme. All the other stories were clustered underneath.
Like Mike, I was prebriefed on the story. I had a huge, long, substantial look at Sidewiki. I’d taken my prebriefing time and invested it in doing a long look (which is precisely why I think prebriefings help, as they allow for more indepth analysis).
But in the end, none of that mattered. PaidContent was first, and PaidContent won. If we’d all been out at the same time, PaidContent almost certainly would have been one of the more buried stories in the group. We’d all have gone out at once, and the story that “won” the top position would have gone differently (from experience, on a search story like this, I’d say it would either be TechCrunch or my Search Engine Land site that nabbed the top spot).
I’m not losing sleep over it (already lost enough working on the story ahead of the embargo). To me, the PaidContent post looked like an accident, rather than intentional. I’m less cynical, I guess. We’ve done the same very, very rarely, accidentally gotten a time wrong. Like maybe twice or three times over the course of years. But it happens.
I’m in a different position than TechCrunch, however. I deal with a much smaller set of companies that want to do prebriefs, and typically those prebriefs involve a very small set of trustworthy publications. That’s going to continue. But these small companies that want to embargo iffy news that they pitch to many media outlets. Yeah, goodbye to that.
Personally, as a subscriber of TC, this is good so I get the latest breaking, non-staged, relevant news in the tech industry.
However, I could see this as a concern when a TC writer decides to publish an article while under embargo — the targeted company might not necessarily be ready and prepared for the onslaught of user activity, questions and have proper staffing on hand for a mention by TC.
On the other hand — this is where PR firms need to be firm with their clients and prepare/consult them to be ready for the wave of buzz even if embargoed.
I think embargoes are good in PR and publishers so it gives the publisher a chance to actually raise questions and interact with a company around whatever editorial slant they put on it. It’s good for maintaining healthy relationships. I imagine that after a publisher breaks embargo, they will lose exclusivity that one who honors them.
I’m split on the matter. But I appreciate TC’s transparency on the topic as it’s one that people should be aware of.
~Joe
Hello Earth people. This comment is from the future.
ALL THESE COMMENTS
ARE YOURS EXCEPT
THIS ONE
ATTEMPT NO
THREADING THERE
USE THEM TOGETHER
USE THEM IN PEACE
To add another layer of madness…
I am sitting on an embargo right now which goes live tomorrow. I googled the info and found out the company just posted a youtube video about the launch and I saw reference to the item at a sneak peek from a conference a few days ago.
Now that everyone is a “journalist” it gets harder and harder to keep a secret. And the same tools are available to professionals and amateurs around the world.
I love these times… a little shake up is a good thing.
power to the people!!
Is there an embargo for the CrunchPad, or why are there no news about it
It all comes down to the value of the news and the strength of the story. There have been a number of comments suggesting that companies just blog the news — and people will come. But if you’re a relatively unknown company, it ain’t that easy. You have to create interest. And the very best way to do that is to have a number of media outlets cover you all at once — and the best way to make that happen is via an embargo. At my PR firm, we have to balance the exclusive vs. a broader approach all the time. I don’t see the embargo going away anytime soon – dozens of rock-solid, reputable journalists readily accept them if the story is worth it.
At it’s heart, journalism is all about getting sources to provide exclusive information — but the rub is that a “source” will always have a self-interest to be filled. With companies making announcements, the particular self-interest is getting widespread positive publicity.
And the strongest piece of leverage any “source” has is whether to open up his/her mouth in the first place and share the story. That action can be leveraged against the things that a publication/journalist/blog holds dear — which is the ability to write the story he or she wants when he or she wants. I think this balance will always exist and embargoes are a big piece of that puzzle.
More powerful publications with broader reach and influence will always hold more sway and power in refusing embargoes. This is nothing new. TechCrunch is in the fortunate and well-deserved position of being a very strong voice in the tech industry and can take the news it wants and suss out the news it really wants. It’s a good place to be.
People, why does this issue continue to be an issue at all? It just shouldn’t continue to be a problem for anyone involved.
You guys are amazing. You broke the embargo on the Microsoft Web Office story a week ago without even a thought, yet you somehow manage to claim the high ground here.
It really is amazing how you always seem to make the story about you.
Agreed – in my journalism studies, I distinctly remember my professors and mentors warning us all of letting ourselves become part of the story. It’s professionalism 101.
Why would a serious journalist agree not to do his or her job? Sticking to an embargo is like putting on handcuffs and giving some flack the key.
I have refused to agree to embargoes and NDAs for more than 25 years. I’ve always believed that is standard practice with reputable news orgs.
I’m surprised that TC is just figuring out what ethical journalists have known for years and years.
ok, here’s a quick tutorial for all the ‘experts’ in this thread.
embargoes exist for a few reasons. one is so long-lead publications (as in print — any one around here remember paper?) could cover new products more or less as they were being unveiled. otherwise they were covering stuff that is months old, which didn’t serve them or their readers very well.
another reason is to give reporters time to work with a product and write a thorough, well-thought out review that would appear more or less when the product was announced. that’s why pogue, mossberg, baig, etc get the early iPhones. again, the publication, its readers, and the company making the product all benefit from this (unless of course, they all hated the thing, in which case the company doesn’t benefit that much).
some print publications, typically daily newspapers, have had a no-embargo policy for years. magazines and other publications that appear less often generally do have some kind of embargo policy, for obvious reasons. nothing to do with ethics. it’s about the practical limitations of publishing.
in the future, when paper is kaput, there may be fewer reasons for embargoes. we aren’t there yet.
I don’t think the mad rush to be first on the web with often inaccurate or wildly speculative information is a benefit to readers, imho. maybe to the sites (like this one) that specialize in this kind of thing, but not to anyone else.
finally, some respected journalists have joined this discussion and responded reasonably to serious slanders you’ve thrown in their direction. by and large you’ve been total dicks to them. are you really all just 13 years old? maybe it’s time to grow up a little, eh?
dt
Thank you so much Michael Arrington for telling us once again the way is in the technology publishing world. Without you, we wouldn’t know what to write about, who to trust, what to eat (oh wait, I think I still know what to eat).
Sometimes when I read Michael’s posts, I imagine him sitting on a throne, waving his scepter and saying, “This company will rise.” “This company will fall.” “Embargoes are dead” “No, now they’re really dead.” So recent lapses by tech journalists have not only led Michael to declare the death of NDA’s but have, of course, supported his central thesis: that they’re ridiculous in the first place.
When Arrington first wrote his new policy and I blasted him for it http://bit.ly/9fo1J , I got a lot of congratulatory pats on the back—mostly from PR folk and also a few manufacturers who wouldn’t go on record with a “Bravo, Lance, you really gave it to Michael!”
Whatever.
One thing Michael and I agree on is that the rules are changing—in that no one abides by them. Earlier this week Gizmodo ran a story on information apparently leaked from Microsoft’s inner sanctum on the new Courier tablet. Microsoft won’t confirm or deny its existence, but Gizmodo has an incredibly knowledgeable story, written by someone going under a pseudonym. Gizmodo is not getting punished, but I have to imagine that someone at Microsoft is. The new rules are certainly benefiting everyone who breaks the rules, but I still don’t think it’s right.
I also guarantee that Michael Arrington’s new world of tech journalism will change things in ways that most of us will not like. Companies are about to become a lot more closed off. Last year one vendor visited me with grave concerns about how to work with media outlets anymore. They couldn’t seem to control the flow of information, so they wanted to stop talking—period.
How is that a good thing?
I should also add that I hate the extortionist policy that trades embargoes for exclusives. I hate it even more that companies are agreeing to this chicanery. I read one comment here from Sarah Lacy that seemed to applaud this kind of activity:
“embargoes help smaller sites more than bigger ones, and i say that as a reporter who’s written for both. bigger sites are almost always bigger because of hard work and quality.”
So embargoes are just for little ninny sites that don’t matter much. If a big site gets bigger because it lied and broke an NDA or got an exclusive, it’s all because they work so much harder and are, well, so much better than everyone else. Now there is some twisted logic.
My site, PCMag.com has long been one of the bigger tech destinations on the web. We still get NDA information every single day. We talk about the products at an agreed upon time and do thorough quality work (often in our labs) with the products we’ve tested. I don’t think of us as small or small minded.
I do, however, wonder about Michael Arrington’s state of mind.
yeah i’m going to get to the big trade mags next, which are really just a bunch of ads. The PR folks and manufacturers patting you on the back for continuing to play the game isn’t a good thing.
… and after that, Mr. Arrington will explain Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and deconstruct Finnegan’s Wake.
sorry, but this just seems too appropriate to pass up:
http://www.esar...on-ethics-czar/
dt
It’s like Fox News and CNN arguing about who reports news and then reporting the argument as news.
As a consumer of tech info, my reaction is not unlike that of my dude at the end of the movie “Disclosure”–>Can you write the darned thing or not?
I know you have to coddle to the ones that create the gadgets you write about but they can go pound salt as far as I’m concerned.
I want everything you got and I want it as soon as humanly possible.
Thank you for your time and help with this matter.