2 - Structure , dates, times, embargoes
A release always has a date, which in a printed version usually appears on the top, in the right corner, telling the journalist when the information may be used.
If a release is to be used as soon as it is received, it will bear the date and the word IMMEDIATE, in upper case. If a statement is being issued ahead of publication, then it is said to be “embargoed”.
An embargoed release is used to give journalists time to prepare their stories prior to some event, say the publication of a book. So, if the book appears three days hence (and long embargoes are strongly discouraged in Europe, though they are more common in the USA) the date line would read:
EMBARGO
00.01 hrs 3 February 2005
Embargoes are typically set for one minute past midnight on the day of release; however this is not a rule. And in the era of global communication, you must be aware that a story issued at midnight US Eastern Standard Time is not for publication until the requisite number of hours later in the day in London. Also, a story that is likely to do well in evening papers, such as the London Evening Standard, can be embargoed for, say, 1100 hours on the day of publication, to give that paper first bite if (for example) getting to all MPs regardless of political leanings, is important to you.
Embargoes are there to be observed, and by and large, they are. Naturally the temptation to break an embargo increases with the controversy associated with a big story, though in doing so journalists – especially those working on a particular beat like science, technology, law, education etc. – risk queering their pitch by doing so.
Also, journalists do (sometimes!) find stories by virtue of genuine journalistic acumen, without the help of news releases from anyone and without necessarily knowing that someone has issued an embargoed notice about it. In such cases, stories may break early for entirely legitimate reasons. This will not stop other journalists complaining, and there will often be a furious row about it. Embargoes and their breakage (or apparent breakage) cause more heat than any other subject and very little light is ever cast by these debates.
The news provider will also naturally be annoyed and disappointed at their failure to break their story in the orderly and timely fashion that the news release system is designed to achieve. However it is not always a case of someone breaking an embargo, even though it may look that way; and, let’s face it, that’s life and sh*t happens. Under these circumstances the best thing to do is reflect that nobody is going to die as a result.
Particular care needs to be taken with news that is released in advance for publication on a Monday. Sunday newspapers are, unfortunately, under particular pressure to break stories early because their peculiar timing means that they need to look for ways of “making” news, and hence dominating the week ahead – forcing the dailies to follow their lead.
An example of the “good” effect of this pressure was the legendary “Insight” team of investigative journalists set up by The Sunday Times in the 1970s. Their research gave the paper a regular flow of exclusives that were models of good journalism.
However, the “down” side of these pressures (more in evidence today) is the tendency among hard-pressed journalists on Sunday papers to break embargoed stories early, or to “harden up” stories that everyone knows about, often changing them out of all recognition in an attempt to make them sensational. (I should point out here, before I get hate mail, that it's not only Sunday journalists who are sometimes guilty of that.)
So, while releasing a story early over a weekend (as what is known as a “Sunday for Monday”) is tempting (because advance copy for a Monday is very attractive), the material for the story must be carefully chosen so as not to place too great a temptation upon the Sundays to do something “they didn’t oughter”.
As a result of the decreasing regard for embargoes that many older journalists would rank alongside lack of respect and good table manners and all those other things that have been on the slide since the year dot, there is one definitely undesirable modern trend afoot. And this is an unfortunate creeping pomposity about embargoes, which leads some issuers to write “STRICT EMBARGO” or even “PLEASE NOTE – STRICT EMBARGO”.
This is merely, one presumes, a measure of how upset the provider will be if their embargo is broken; but doing it cheapens the currency and implies that there are embargoes that can be ignored. All embargoes should be strict. If they are not, then do not use them. The world is already flooded with press statements under quite unnecessary embargoes, and this just makes the problem worse.
If a release is to be used as soon as it is received, it will bear the date and the word IMMEDIATE, in upper case. If a statement is being issued ahead of publication, then it is said to be “embargoed”.
An embargoed release is used to give journalists time to prepare their stories prior to some event, say the publication of a book. So, if the book appears three days hence (and long embargoes are strongly discouraged in Europe, though they are more common in the USA) the date line would read:
EMBARGO
00.01 hrs 3 February 2005
Embargoes are typically set for one minute past midnight on the day of release; however this is not a rule. And in the era of global communication, you must be aware that a story issued at midnight US Eastern Standard Time is not for publication until the requisite number of hours later in the day in London. Also, a story that is likely to do well in evening papers, such as the London Evening Standard, can be embargoed for, say, 1100 hours on the day of publication, to give that paper first bite if (for example) getting to all MPs regardless of political leanings, is important to you.
Emabrgo breaks
Embargoes are there to be observed, and by and large, they are. Naturally the temptation to break an embargo increases with the controversy associated with a big story, though in doing so journalists – especially those working on a particular beat like science, technology, law, education etc. – risk queering their pitch by doing so.
Also, journalists do (sometimes!) find stories by virtue of genuine journalistic acumen, without the help of news releases from anyone and without necessarily knowing that someone has issued an embargoed notice about it. In such cases, stories may break early for entirely legitimate reasons. This will not stop other journalists complaining, and there will often be a furious row about it. Embargoes and their breakage (or apparent breakage) cause more heat than any other subject and very little light is ever cast by these debates.
The news provider will also naturally be annoyed and disappointed at their failure to break their story in the orderly and timely fashion that the news release system is designed to achieve. However it is not always a case of someone breaking an embargo, even though it may look that way; and, let’s face it, that’s life and sh*t happens. Under these circumstances the best thing to do is reflect that nobody is going to die as a result.
Particular care needs to be taken with news that is released in advance for publication on a Monday. Sunday newspapers are, unfortunately, under particular pressure to break stories early because their peculiar timing means that they need to look for ways of “making” news, and hence dominating the week ahead – forcing the dailies to follow their lead.
An example of the “good” effect of this pressure was the legendary “Insight” team of investigative journalists set up by The Sunday Times in the 1970s. Their research gave the paper a regular flow of exclusives that were models of good journalism.
However, the “down” side of these pressures (more in evidence today) is the tendency among hard-pressed journalists on Sunday papers to break embargoed stories early, or to “harden up” stories that everyone knows about, often changing them out of all recognition in an attempt to make them sensational. (I should point out here, before I get hate mail, that it's not only Sunday journalists who are sometimes guilty of that.)
So, while releasing a story early over a weekend (as what is known as a “Sunday for Monday”) is tempting (because advance copy for a Monday is very attractive), the material for the story must be carefully chosen so as not to place too great a temptation upon the Sundays to do something “they didn’t oughter”.
As a result of the decreasing regard for embargoes that many older journalists would rank alongside lack of respect and good table manners and all those other things that have been on the slide since the year dot, there is one definitely undesirable modern trend afoot. And this is an unfortunate creeping pomposity about embargoes, which leads some issuers to write “STRICT EMBARGO” or even “PLEASE NOTE – STRICT EMBARGO”.
This is merely, one presumes, a measure of how upset the provider will be if their embargo is broken; but doing it cheapens the currency and implies that there are embargoes that can be ignored. All embargoes should be strict. If they are not, then do not use them. The world is already flooded with press statements under quite unnecessary embargoes, and this just makes the problem worse.