This News Embargo Backfired in a Big Way—Here’s What Happened
I played by the rules, but another outlet didn’t—and it cost me time, money, and trust. Here’s the inside story of an embargo gone wrong and what PR people can learn from the mess.
Joni Sweet is a seasoned writer, editor, and content strategist with 13+ years of media experience. In this newsletter, Joni reveals her current assignments and insider tips to help PR professionals sharpen their pitches, avoid rookie mistakes, land coverage for their clients, and build stronger relationships with writers. Get ready for candid advice, a touch of sass, and secret strategies to make your pitches stand out.
Hi friends,
I just returned home from the dreamiest business retreat in Central Oregon.
There’s just something about days spent snowshoeing in 9 feet of powder followed by deep planning sessions with my business coach and a room full of creative solopreneurs that has me bursting with ideas…
…like Pitch Club, a monthly Zoom session for live pitch audits and feedback—it’s The Pitch Fix meets group chat vibes, where you get real-time insights and a built-in hype group.
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These ideas are still simmering, and they might take a slightly different shape when they officially launch. But if you’re sitting there thinking, I need this, like, yesterday, hit reply and let me know. I’m giving a handful of early testers first dibs before these officially launch.
Today I want to talk about one of my biggest PR pet peeves—news embargoes—starting with a little story about how I got burned by one in a big way.
News embargoes are a gamble. I lost.
Several years ago, I accepted a news embargo on a very important annual announcement—one that fashion designers, branding experts, and trend forecasters anticipate every year. Let’s just say, when this news drops, the world suddenly starts seeing things in a whole new shade.
So, I lock in the embargo time, chat with the PR rep about my angle (just to make sure there was no major overlap with other writers they’d already heard back from) and get to work.
The outlet I was writing for pays writers based on how much traffic their stories bring in (yes, that’s a thing, meaning I had no clue if this story would make me $5 or $500). But I knew that if I could hit publish the second the embargo lifted, there was a solid chance the search engine gods would smile upon me, drawing lots of eyes to the story and hopefully resulting in a not-too-shabby payout for me.
So, I hustled. I pulled together all the info, sourced the images, and put the finishing touches on the piece literally as I boarded a flight to Hawaii. All I had left to do was lock in the perfect headline.
To make sure I wasn’t reinventing the wheel, I took a quick look at how outlets framed this launch in previous years. And then—*BAM.* There it was. A story about this year’s launch, live on a major outlet hours before the embargo lifted. Same announcement. Nearly identical angle.