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

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.

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

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?

“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?

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

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.

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

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.