Arrington: TechCrunch to no longer honor embargoes
TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington published his long-awaited “war on PR” post on December 17, actually declaring war on embargoes.
The creator of the Web 2.0 must read blog announced that it will no longer honor embargoes, except in rare cases with a handful of well-trusted journalists.
Said Arrington: “One annoying thing for us is when an embargo is broken. That means that a news site goes early with the news despite the fact that they’ve promised not to. The benefits are clear – sites like Google News and TechMeme prioritize them first as having broken the story. Traffic and links flow in to whoever breaks an embargo first.”
And the number of embargoes broken, likely by TechCrunch competitors, has jumped, he added.
“A year ago, embargo breaks were rare, once-a-month things,” Arrington said on TechCrunch. “Today, nearly every embargo is broken, sometimes by a few minutes, sometimes by half a day or more.”
Arrington also added that he will be publishing a blacklist of “every firm, company, publication, and individual writer involved” when an embargo is broken, beginning with his own Web site.
