When is an embargo not an embargo?

There's an unwritten rule that you don't reveal the contents of an embargoed press release before the stipulated date.

It's a game most people are willing to play although it can be a risky strategy if the story is compelling because the pressure on journalists to get an exclusive story is strong and there's always a risk someone may break rank.

It happened to me once and it could have been a disaster, negating a year's hard work.

I was director of the Media Monitoring Unit which was set up in the mid Eighties to monitor television current affairs programmes for political bias.

For twelve long months I sat in a darkened room watching videos of Panorama, World In Action and numerous other programmes, making notes and assessing (as objectively as I could!) whether they met the conditions laid down by the Broadcasting Act (as it was).

The analysis and results were then published in a report that was as big as a telephone directory and made an impressive thud when dropped on a desk.

We issued an embargoed press release but someone at the London Evening Standard decided to break the embargo and the story was splashed all over the front page the day before the report was due to be launched at a press conference at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall Mall.

Luckily for us the Standard report (headlined 'YES, THE BBC IS BIASED') created a storm of interest and the story was instantly followed up by almost every national newspaper the following day.

Our press conference, which went ahead after the Standard report had appeared, was a bit of a damp squib (see Pedigree of a TV watchdog) but we got away with it, albeit more by luck than judgement.

Anyway, the reason I am writing about embargoes is because ASH have issued a press release about a survey on e-cigarettes that was conducted by YouGov in March.

It's embargoed until 00.01hrs Monday April 28 and I'm not going to break it. When I read it, though, it seemed familiar and a tiny bit of investigation revealed that the headline result is already in the public domain because it was published by the Sunday Times on April 13.

Of course ASH aren't the first to recycle the result of a poll or survey. We all do it. But embargoing a press release – giving the impression the figures have never previously been published – seems a bit, well, unethical.

The question I am asking myself is this: if I link to the Sunday Times report am I breaking the embargo? After all, I will effectively be revealing the 'story' that ASH doesn't want us to know about until Monday morning.

As it happens the press release is not without interest. In particular some of the comments by ASH CEO Deborah Arnott about e-cigs will be welcomed by many people in the vaping community and beyond.

I'll post it here tomorrow night – at 00.01hrs, naturally.

Comments

[Xopher]

Could the press release be similar to this article on the UKCTAS site - http://www.ukctas.ac.uk/ukctas/news/news-items/article130414.aspx ?
An interesting quote "Research due to be published next month shows smokers who attempted to give up without professional support were 60% more likely to succeed if they used e-cigarettes compared with those who used no aid or used other nicotine replacement products."

[Norman Brand]

I sympathise, having in my time been on the receiving end of thousands of embargoed press releases. I also understand the pressure on journalists to have an exclusive. What a dilemma for the person issuing the release! It's especially difficult when the originators of the release may well be quietly happy for someone to leak it. Congratulations on sticking to your code.

[The Ferryman]

Simple facts
The E.cig is a threat to:
The Pharmaceutical (NRT) revenues Billions
The Government Tax revenue Bilions
The Tobacco Companies Sales Millions
Anti Smoking Campaign Funding Millions

[nisakiman]

@ The Ferryman

Yes. Summed up in a nutshell.

Plus the added ignominy of all those groups having no control over e-cigs (and perhaps more importantly, their users), which they don't like one little bit.

So we can confidently expect to see e-cigs regulated out of existence through the judicious use of junk science and wilful ignorance.