Hardware reviewer Dan Rutter linked to our bit about press embargoes, “which in the computer world manifests itself in those sudden snowstorms of online reviews that show up for each new piece of PC gear, all on the same day and nearly on the same hour.” He writes:

There are, as the Consumerist piece makes clear, some perfectly valid reasons for embargoes to exist. But they’re mainly just another way for the makers of news to control the journalistic process, just as the precious gift of “access” prevents journalists at White House press conferences these days from saying… well, anything much.

Dan says that he broke a press embargo back in 2000 when Intel sent a computer with a then new P4 chip inside to his news organization’s sales department. The ad sales guy didn’t know what to do with it and Dan ended up with the computer, but not apparently the cover letter containing the embargo language. Dan decided to run ahead with a review, posting it a few hours before everyone else.

Interestingly, in the ensuing, “moderate amount of hell [that] broke loose,” the locus of outrage wasn’t Intel, but other journalists, who castigated him and blacklisted him from ever being linked, until they forgot about it years later and began linking him again. — BEN POPKEN

Embargoes, NDAs, and loopholes [How To Spot A Psycopath]
(Image: Stu Shepard)

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