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The Exclusive, The Embargo and The Arrington
This morning I sat down at the computer to write the story about Chegg’s funding announcement but I see it was already posted ahead of the embargoed time by Techcrunch and VentureBeat. No idea who posted first as the times on RSS feeds seem to always use different time zones. Perhaps another source broke the embargo first – I don’t know. I checked Google Blogsearch and those were the only two sources that were returned.
Today Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington has a rant about embargoes and how they are always broken. I agree they are always broken. I see them broken everyday. When I saw the Chegg embargo broken, I emailed the PR firm contact and asked what’s up. She said that when she awoke, she had a variety of calls and had to put out various fires due to the broken embargo. Here was my response to her:
I think of all of this as a relationship – you, me, the company, my readers, my advertisers/sponsors – its all about the relationship between all of us – and most of all its about trust.
The only way it will change is when the PR firms stop sending the news to the sites that don’t value the relationship. The problem is that you (general) won’t do it and the blogs know that. So they do whatever they want because they know that you won’t do anything against them.
Arrington seems to imply that because more blogs are receiving the embargoed news, it’s the smaller blogs that are breaking the embargoes. From the nearly one-hundred emails I have from PR firms and startups talking about their broken embargoes, it’s rarely the smaller blogs that are the culprit.
In his rant, Arrington notes:
“We’ve never broken an embargo at TechCrunch. Not once.”
Yet in the comments, when called out by Ben Metcalfe about the fact that Techcrunch has broken embargoes, Mike responds:
“You’re right, we did break the justin.tv embargo in 2007. It was an accident…”
I believe that today’s rant comes partially from the fact that embargoes are being broken but also partially because more news is spread around and everyone isn’t running to Mike like they did a year (or two) ago.
I have several emails (plus many calls and discussions) about embargoes that were broken by Techcrunch. So it’s not only the one “mistake” that Mike mentions above. I am not going to post them because there is no reason to drag the startups through the mud. If you trust me, you know I have the emails. And let’s not single out Techcrunch, the other “bigs” also have broken their share of embargoes. I have those emails as well.
There are two types of broken embargoes – mistakes and malicious. Frankly I don’t understand why any embargoes are broken under the “mistake” argument but it happens I guess. A year ago I wrote my thoughts on embargoes and we’ve written several times on the embargo topic since then. And my policy isn’t changing after today’s conversation.
Is it that hard to post a story without using a timed-posting? Is it really that hard to double-check the time of the post? Having been responsible for financial releases where the SEC would issue fines if a post went a minute early, I guess this “don’t put it into wordpress until the right time” just comes second nature to me.
At the end of the day, it’s all about trust and relationships. It seems to keep boiling down to that, no matter if it’s about paid reviews, advertisers, how winners are selected at startup conferences or embargoes.
Update: Arrington has posted a comment to this post and in the comment he notes,”What you don’t understand is that very often PR firms give us an hour or two head start on stories.” Let’s assume this is the case for argument’s sake. So then how does Arrington know that ALL of the other broken embargoes also didn’t have this special “privilege”. How does he know that the apparent line I am being fed is not the same one he is?
The Exclusive
I get offered exclusives every week and I turn down every single one of them. I turn them down because my belief is that it’s best that the startup (or big company) gets the most coverage they can. Some blogs like the embargo as it allows them to look like a news-breaking organization. The truth is, any exclusive that goes up on any blog, I can have a better post written about the story in 5 minutes. Exclusives are the real worthless item out of today’s conversation. But clearly for some blogs, they need to force the exclusive because it’s critical for their success.
There’s a belief that if you don’t offer an exclusive, you won’t be covered. Let me clue you in on a secret, that’s not true. If your story is newsworthy, it will be covered without an exclusive. And if your story isn’t newsworthy, an exclusive probably won’t help anyway. Many outlets won’t cover a story if they know an exclusive was issued. My advice to startups is that exclusives aren’t a good vehicle to use – you want as much coverage as you can, not one outlet.
The Arrington
Arrington is just upset because he no longer gets all the news exclusives first anymore. News is shared with more bloggers, more news outlets, via company blogs, via video interviews with people including Scoble and via tools like FriendFeed and Twitter.
Should be interesting to see if startups and PR firms are willing to stand up to Mike and not send him any news going forward or if ALL YOUR NEWS ARE BELONG TO US.
Just one thing to add
When I get a press release stating 10 minutes past the hour as the embargo, I just know that someone has been told 10 minutes earlier, and have even challenged the PR who refused to comment.
Agreed – that happened to me with Snappily – I spent a LOT of time with them in san francisco, even did a nice video interview. They asked me not to post about it until they were ready. They sent me an "embargo" for 12:10pm. And then I see a post earlier by Techcrunch. I told Snapily that they are now banned on CN. Too bad too because the interview was quite good and their products are pretty neat.
agreed kipp – all part of the relationship – let’s assume we are offline friends and you know im allergic to nuts, would you make me a nut cluster for xmas? :)
Well after all of this – set up – Embargo Zone. Anyone that is PR or blogs that don’t want to write about a particular press release can just drop them off at tips [at] embargozone [dot] com. Look at like a clearing house for stuff that no one writes about and with this one location, you can as a blogger pick and choose if you wish to write further. This isn’t a typical blog, where the blogger’s opinion will be in there, or from the point of view of the blogger. It will be a place where anyone can send in information – and we post it. Period.
Allen,
As normal you tell it how it is and why a disagree with you slightly, that was a great post and much better said then the cranky rant over at TechCrunch. I did I video over on my blog with my own ideas but, bloggers need to be better at telling PR folks how that should be pitched and PR need to get better at their jobs, understand the industry you are pitching or find a new career.
Kipp
Allen,
Great post, and I agree with you (and yes, I work for a PR firm that represents some startups). Relationships are crucial all around, and for the most part are one of the major reasons clients of any type — but especially startups — hire an external PR firm.
That said I want to offer some context, some frustration, and a question, all of which are entirely my own opinion. Mike had some of this in his original post, but I think, as a “PR person” I first need to acknowledge that there are a lot of PR people out there who don’t care about relationships and are more than happy to give out numerous “exclusives,” agree to let someone break an embargoed story early, etc. Some of them are unscrupulous, some are trying to live up to the immense expectations of clients (and their VCs), and some are both.
Startups are in need of press these days, especially as the economy takes its toll and the ebbing tide reveals whose ships are ready to leave the mooring and whose ain’t. At the same time, in the reshaped media environment that TechCrunch and CenterNetworks have been pillars of creating, some entrepreneurs think they can do PR themselves — which is how you can end up with sloppy press releases missing obvious details like the one that Mary Kathleen talked about in her first comment. Managing expectations up front doesn’t win clients as fast as promising them TechCrunch and VentureBeat tomorrow and the Wall Street Journal within the month. Of course this applies to any industry, but the perceived ease of getting press in the tech space (in some circles) has exacerbated it.
When a firm makes unrealistic promises is when they start “spraying and paying,” sending out bcc’d pitches to every email address they can find and basically doing whatever they can to get coverage to satisfy the client. That’s no good for anyone, and prevents those of us still using what I hope are “polite pitches,” as Mike says, who are trying to get to know you and build a relationship for the long haul (and hopefully work with you to create an interesting story, too).
I don’t know how PR as an industry overcomes those bad actors, but if journalists and bloggers will punish those who spam them (I have no problem with what Chris Anderson did), I’ll stop working with journalists who break embargoes maliciously — though it’s never happened to me, fortunately.
Perhaps if both sides of the media community come together on this we can deftly cut through the noise and make the conversations — and relationships — more robust.
very well written post Allen – agreed on the trust issue.
I, too, am interested “to see if startups and PR firms are willing to stand up to Mike” and every other blogger/journo who breaks embargoes (among other things that I won’t mention here).
;-)
you do realize you are one of them! what’s your plan?
Hi Allen,
I appreciate your post on this.
The new TechCrunch policy is disturbing to me for a couple of reasons, first because I think it’s just a tactic to pressure companies to give them more exclusives and second because, like you, I know of many times they have broken embargoes that I have agreed to — so either the PR folks did indeed give them an exclusive while lying to the rest of us ,or TechCrunch simply broke the embargo.
Arrington’s rant points out the challenges of trying to play by traditional journalistic rules these days.
Many startups don’t want to issue professional press releases. They’d prefer to post everything on their own blogs. Sometimes, even when they do a “press release,” the communication is beyond casual, lacking all kinds of basics that trained journalists like me have to waste time following up with them on, often losing the timing advantage.
As a full-time tech journalist for more 20 years, I broke my first embargo earlier this month by mistake.
I failed to see one letter: the “P” in the date stamp, which said “8:00 am PT.”
I blame my failing eyesight (I am no longer in my 30s!), the casual nature of the “press release” which failed to underscore the time stamp, relying literally on one character, and the fact that the startup was based on the east coast and the entrepreneur had told me the news would break at 8:00. Frankly, it never occurred he’d be talking about another time zone.
The entrepreneur contacted me a few minutes after my story posted at 8:00 am Eastern Standard Time and alerted me to my mistake. He asked me if I could pull the story. But even though only a few minutes had elapsed, I had already tweeted the story, sent it to colleagues including journalists at other news orgs, and a quick search engine search showed that my story was already on Google.
I felt terrible. But it was truly a human error.
I emailed him immediately that there was nothing I could do. And a bit later I called him personally and apologized.
The entrepreneur was gracious about it, but he was very concerned that “the blogs” wouldn’t pick it up now that I had blown the embargo.
I’m not trying to let myself off the hook — I made a mistake and apologized for it — but I kept wondering why he, an east-coast entrepreneur with east-coast venture capitalist firms backing him, had kow-towed to the west coast media on the timing of his news.
When did the power of the media move to the west coast?
What west-coast blog would be threatening startups not to cover their news unless they waited to announce it on a time-table convenient to the west coast?
Hmmmm, I wonder.
Mary Kathleen Flynn
Senior Editor/Senior Video Producer
The Deal
mflynn@thedeal.com
That and setting embargoes for Pacific time makes no sense. Doing so eliminates two hours worth of time content could be generating traffic and getting crawled if announced in an earlier time zone.
Allen,
It is categorically unfair for you to accuse us of breaking embargoes without naming sources, at least to me privately. What you don’t understand is that very often PR firms give us an hour or two head start on stories. Sometimes they don’t even tell us they’re doing it. If you have a problem with that, fine. But to then believe them when they turn around and tell you we broke the embargo is just a rookie mistake. They’re flat out lying to you to make themselves look better, and you are falling right into it because you want to believe that we’re somehow evil.
My second point on all this is that your assumption that news is only distributed through PR firms is seriously flawed. We’re not goldfish being fed, the better ones among us go out hunting for our food. We post embargoed news because it’s easy. But I am not satisfied with a day’s work unless I’ve found my own stories.
It’s time to grow up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-OSgiSUjHE
Let me clarify – the emails I have are not just from PR firms, but from startup CEOs. There’s no reason to drag them into this.
As for your comment, "What you don’t understand is that very often PR firms give us an hour or two head start on stories." Trust me I understand this very well. But if this is the case, how do you know that the same story wasn’t given to you when x blog breaks an embargo? Interesting, eh?
Of course news isn’t just distributed through pr – you have plenty of sources providing you with news – and naturally you hit the pavement too.
You quote anonymous sources in your articles all the time. Is quoting anonymous sources now a TechCrunch exclusive as well?
Arrington’s exactly right: It’s time to grow up. And what better way to do than to give PR professionals the bird.
Yes, Michael, “I don’t have to follow the rules…you’re not the boss of me,” is VERY grown up.
Michael,
That is what I have suspected all along — that PR firms tell a bunch of us the embargo lifts at such and such a time and then lets one org release the news earlier — in other words giving them an exclusive — and then tells everyone else that org broke the embargo….
But why are you going to say yes you honor embargoes and then break them?
Mary Kathleen Flynn
Senior Editor/Senior Video Producer
The Deal
mflynn@thedeal.com
thedeal.com
Mike,
You live off being first, because you have nothing else to add of value. Sorry, but thems the facts, as they say.
Looks like you were just nailed (again) with self-serving hypocrisy. There’s a shocker to anyone with a clue.
No one wants to believe you are evil. But many people believe you are something far worse: a drama queen. Is it any wonder that your best writers (all of whom exceed you) leave your site?
MA on why TechCrunch doesn’t break embargoes:
“What you don’t understand is that very often PR firms give us an hour or two head start on stories. ”
OOOOHHHHH, so when you “appear” to break them, it’s because you are awesome and privileged, but everyone else is playing unfair. And you emailed all of those sites and got private confirmation, right, that they were actually breaking the embargoes?
Hey Allen, not too long ago I wrote a comment on one of your posts (Zipcar, I believe) knocking it because I thought it was a silly argument and you hadn’t researched facts. This comment is exactly the opposite–I commend you posting this because I’ve seen it happen a lot. Breaking an embargo, and I’m willing to give a “grace break” of once, is a cheap move. It’s not fair to companies and it’s not fair to those PR people who have a job to do. Overall, it’s just sleazy.
I totally agree with what you’re saying. I’ve kept reading because I thought you valuable things to say, and I’m glad you prove me right with this one.
Take it easy.
-JMS
Thanks for sticking around! btw they put some "new" zipcars in my lot this week – these cars are so banged up its not even funny!
the timezone issue is a big one for me – back in my CPG days, we used to set all contests to start at 12:01 sunday morning and i had to stay up to post the contests – was complete crap – finally i was able to get us to change to a more reasonable time.
for these news releases – the pr firms need to do a better job with the time – 12am pst is worthless – people basically asleep on west coast, absolutely asleep on east coast and just starting to get up across europe.
It’s better again when they don’t quote the time zone, then expect you to know it. I actually broke an embargo on an Australian company story because the media release just gave a time…and it was meant to be US EST (and it was a US PR firm). Standardization of some sort would be nice, or at the very least some consistency, because it’s pot luck at the moment
yea i agree – some consistency would be great
Unfortunately, while this timing generally stinks for the Web, when print is involved, their stories generally post online at the very top of the day – forcing the early embargo. But agreed, if print isn’t involved no need for an embargo that lifts when most of the country is snoring…
HAH!
While I’m sorry to hear about your Zipcar issues, I continue to have nothing but positive experiences…as for gas…eh, we’ll talk later!
I just went back and carefully read through both posts…yours, and the stunningly self-serving “Death to the Embargo,” or whatever other linkbaiting title Arrington gave it. I have shared it amongst my friends on Reader with quite a rant of my own, the main point being Techcrunch is out of my RSS feeds. There’s no reason anymore. I got annoyed with ONE post of yours awhile back…Techcrunch posts continually aggravate me. Secondly, A-rod just managed to let his ego blow every media contact of his but…what?…three? Why WOULD I continue reading? Does anyone really care about the opinions on that blog anymore? Because it seems to me that’s all that’s left, since I can’t imagine any PR person going back to him at this point.
Blog readers are getting smarter, older and more sophisticated, and the techniques Arrington has used to build an audience have all played on the ignorance inherent in the early maturation of the “blogosphere.” I am interested in reading news and considered opinions on the evolution of this continually exciting medium. Techcrunch is interested in cheap media plays and sensational headlines. As Techcrunch becomes the Yahoo! of the blogging world, perhaps Arrington’s last post can be on what the Mesozoic era is like.
This’ll be great. I’ll have more time to read posts here.
Fried turkey was great, by the way.
-JMS
I think Zipcar is great and wonderful – seriously. I just wish they would tell the truth :)
As for who you read, I can’t really help there – the key is to read the blogs you enjoy and to read enough to give you a balanced view on a topic. Everyone has their own method and as a reader you can decide to which blogs you interact.
As for fried turkey, I’ve never had any but I do hear there’s a place in Brooklyn that has great fried turkey.