Press releases often carry embargoes. These say that the story can only be used after a certain date or time. A good example of an embargo comes from the Central Office of Information when they send out details of the New Year's Honours list. This is embargoed until midnight on December 31 so that the secrecy of who is getting what award is not breached. However, they realise that it would be impossible for any news organisation to then get in touch with the people on the list in order to interview and photograph them so the list is sent to newsdesks earlier so they can arrange for interviews and pictures. This means that the newspaper can have pages all set up for distributing from midnight onwards and broadcast outlets can also pro-duce bulletins from midnight on with archive footage, new pictures and interviews.

As embargoes can be useful to journalists, it is often in their interest to adhere to them. But they are not legally binding in any way and if misused, can be ignored.

Faced with an embargo, you should alert the newsdesk. If you think the embargo is unreasonable, then explain this to the newsdesk, but it will be up to the editor to decide.