Biz journalists, PR and embargoes

Sabrina Husain, a student at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication, writes about the relationship between business journalists and PR professionals over embargoed material.

Husain writes, “The public relations embargo has been a significant point of conflict between these two groups. An embargo is a tool used by PR professionals to give journalists and bloggers major news prior to its official release, with the understanding that they can’t publish stories until a specified date. Typically, no legal or binding contract occurs, so journalists are under no formal obligation to honor the embargo.

“Embargoes allow journalists to tell better and more thorough stories. This increases the amount of information that is disseminated to the public. Embargoes thrive in the complicated fields of technology, medicine, government, business and real estate.

“When used strategically, embargoes can help build relationships between PR professionals, journalists and the public.

“‘You build a certain amount of trust with a reporter by releasing protected information, and they build trust with you by holding that information until the appointed time,’ said Erica Taylor, a former account director at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.”

Read more here.