Category: Technology Author : Duncan Riley Posted: December 17, 2008
Tags : embargoes, michael arrington, techcrunch
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington writes today that he’s tired of the running joke that is the PR embargo system and that they won’t be respecting embargoes in the future except from a handful of trusted PR firms.
He claims that TechCrunch never breaks embargoes, which is completely untrue I might add (they broke the Mahalo story embargo this week by about 20 minutes), but then goes moral on the broken system and why they’re no longer going to play unless they get posts exclusively.
I can’t help at first glance but agree with the points he makes: the system is broken, most PR reps do nothing to enforce embargoes and we’ve actually had a policy in place here for some time that we ask PR reps who regularly don’t enforce embargoes on stories we spend time on to remove us from their list (AOL is one company we no longer cover for example).
But that’s not the real intention of the post. Strip away the moral indignation and you get a very clever play to get TechCrunch more content.
You see if most of TechCrunch’s main competitors wrote that they would ignore embargoes in the future, they’d find their inboxes slowly dry up as PR reps exclude them from pre-briefs and embargoed distributions. But TechCrunch is different. PR firms compete for headlines on TechCrunch, and are regularly told by their clients that they must get a post on TechCrunch, and I know this from having spoken to PR reps during my time writing for TechCrunch, and even more recently.
The decision to ignore embargoes by TechCrunch may mean they miss out on a few stories, but the real result will be that TechCrunch will be offered more exclusives, and TechCrunch’s competitors will miss out on a fair shot of running the story at the same time.
Moral indignation as a ploy to get more exclusive stories and drive more traffic. Touche Michael, Touche. Brilliant play. Evil Genius.
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Dec 17, 2008
The nature of what I write rarely gets me close to the embargo issue. And most people know that I am far from Michael Arrington's greatest chamion, but in this case I think he has a great point. The PR agencies have made joke of the embargo they foist upon journalists. At least once every two weeks, I get spam email from someone I don't know working for an agency I never heard of representing a company I don't cover. And EMBARGO is emblazoned all over the announcement. The way it is supposed to work is first you ask an editor if the will respect an embargo THEN you give her or him the news. In this case,
Dec 17, 2008
It still doesn't change the facts:
a) he's an asshole
b) he's a douchebag
c) I, and much of the Internet's intelligent, hate him
d) he writes about the stupidest shit that's the equivalent of Internet ponzi schemes
Do I get bonus points for a major news reference?
–Kyle
Dec 17, 2008
Shel
I do agree fully with Michael and you on the joke that is the embargo system, but it's one thing writing about it, it's another saying we're not going to respect it unless we get exclusives. That's a play for more exclusive stories wrapped in moral indignation, and damn clever I might add.
Dec 17, 2008
Kyle for President!
Dec 17, 2008
Maybe so, but he is an evil genius. I just direct linked to TechCrunch for the first time in months I'm THAT impressed by how clever this ploy was. I don't have to like him to see the cleverness in what he's done.
Dec 17, 2008
I'm not disagreeing with you here, actually.
I just wanted to point out what you omitted!
–Kyle
Dec 17, 2008
Thanks, but I think I have to have an established career as a programmer first.
I hope to one day be the first Computer Science-based President (instead of business or law)…
But I'm not even allowed to be on the ballots yet. Too young! haha
–Kyle
Dec 17, 2008
I'd place more credence in it if Arrington's people played by the same rules but they don't, so it's just another minor story from someone who's realized there are bigger fish in the sea getting the exclusives he craves.
Dec 17, 2008
*Cough* Emphasis on the Evil Part *Cough*