Remember that TechCrunch "war on PR" that we hinted at about a month ago? Well it's here, and we were right, it is about embargoes. The Web 2.0 bible's editor Michael Arrington published "Death To The Embargo," a long post that very basically can be summed up as, "we've been burned on too many news embargoes so we're not going to honor a single one any more."

But, as with all rules, there are exceptions. Writes Arrington:

There will be exceptions. We will honor embargoes from trusted companies and PR firms who give us the news exclusively, so we know there won't be any mistakes. There are also a handful - maybe three - people who we trust enough to continue to work with them on general embargoes (if you are a PR person and wondering if you're on that list, you're not). But for the vast majority of news we get in our inboxes, we're just going to fire it off to our readers ad hoc whenever we please.

Most reporters we talk to hate embargoed news. One reporter at the Wall Street Journal told us PR pros should avoid them at all costs. Many reporters would obviously prefer to have an exclusive. So is it better to just give a group of core reporters a heads up that news will be released at a certain time and the first one who calls gets the story? Right now Arrington may not even care. The post is his most popular of the day and is sure to be a solid page view generator throughout the week.

[image: wired.com]