Embargoes — can’t live with them, can’t live without them. That was one of several themes running through a spirited discussion among tech journalists and PR people last night. For the uninitiated, embargoes are the controversial process where a tech...
While Tweney continues to selectively agree to embargoes (as does InternetNews.com), he said he recently “punished” a PR firm by refusing to communicate with them for six weeks after a competitor was allowed to publish an embargoed story ahead of everyone else. He said the PR firm’s excuse was that the vendor, a handset manufacturer, had leaked the news to a blog directly without the PR firm knowing.
The New York Times Darlin said embargoes are generally used as a tool by PR firms to co-opt the media. That said, Darlin said the Times often accept embargoes because they ensure reporters don’t miss a story and they have more time to do a thorough job.
That thoroughness is limited. Once you’ve agreed to an embargo, you can’t share that news ahead of time with the analysts and competitors you might otherwise call for comment. Vendors will sometimes provide a list of analysts that have been pre-briefed on their news.
While many took shots at the embargo process and the games PR folk sometimes play, Chris Preimesberger, an editor at eWeek, said embargoes help him get his job done.
“They give me the background information and the time to do the piece right,” said Preimesberger, during a follow up Q&A session. He estimates 75 to 80 percent of the stories eWeek does are facilitated by the embargo process, the rest are breaking news.
“I have no problem with the process and don’t feel like I’m being manipulated,” said Preimesberger.
In search of alternatives
The discussion rolled on with a few stabs at a solution or alternative ideas. None seemed to resonate well except for Foremski’s idea that vendors hold a virtual press conference so everyone can get the information at the same time and go from there.
Rafe Needleman of CNET said he hates embargoes, but the advance time helps give stories more “thoughtfulness.”
That said, he notes other sites that do skimpy stories based on rumors and half-truths benefit by being first out with the news. “Readers often reward velocity,” he said.
Tweney probably summed up the feelings of many by noting that no good journalist is going to pass up an exclusive. While most embargoes aren’t exclusive, he said the embargo process puts a story on the same continuum. “Even if you’re one of 25 others getting the story” that’s worth something, he said.
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Among them is the Taskfox/Ubiquity integration. Ubiquity
(renamed Taskfox) is a Mozilla effort to have a command-line type tool
for various browser and site actions. At one point it was supposed to
be Firefox 3.6, but it's not in the Beta 1 release.