Media exclusives and embargoes can help or harm PR

November 5, 2009

Two tools that PR practitioners typically wields in media and blogger relations — embargoes and exclusives  — each have pros and cons that can strengthen or undermine the bond between the two professions. As Brian Solis writes on the PR 2.0 Web site, for public relations the benefit of an exclusive is that it nearly guarantees a high-profile story will be published. For the reporter, an exclusive imparts a position of authority. But the con of exclusives for public relations is that other journalists often won’t cover a story they see as old news.

Embargoes, on the other hand, give a group of top writers a newsworthy story before its official release, helping orchestrate simultaneous coverage across multiple platforms. As Solis points out, reporters who participate in embargoes benefit by contributing to a breaking story. The rub is that someone will inevitably break the embargo — often causing the other writers to kill their own versions of the story and to resent the PR people involved, if not the entire PR profession.
 
Embargoes benefit all parties when practiced strategically, but reporters and PR professionals who abuse them, intentionally or not, damage relations between media and PR, Solis says.
 
“The explicit and implicit trust that exists between the two sides will either grow stronger or completely unravel with every embargo and exclusive,” he writes, “depending on its outcome.” — Greg Beaubien 
 
 

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