Embargo System

An embargo is an information subsidy in the form of an agreement between a news source and a journalist under which the source gives the journalist access to information before it is given to the public, and in return, the journalist agrees not to disseminate news about the information until a designated day and time.

Embargoes are used throughout journalism. However, they are particularly prevalent in journalism about science and technology—most [Page 250]commonly, in news about research published in major journals—because of the combination of the perceived difficulty in reporting on these topics and the control that the scientific establishment can exert over access to information.

For example, the journal Science is published on Fridays. However, selected journalists are allowed to read advance copies of papers in a given issue of the journal up to a week ahead of the publication date. During this embargo period, a journalist may interview sources and prepare an article or broadcast report, but the news itself cannot be disseminated until 2 p.m. on the day before the journal issue's publication date.

A participating journalist knows that he or she will not be “scooped” on the story by competitors because all have agreed to abide by the same release time. If the embargoed news leaks out prematurely, the embargo is considered to be vacated, and journalists who had agreed to the embargo are free to disseminate the news immediately. If the leak is traced to a journalist who received information under embargo, the journal can discipline the journalist by withholding future access.

Among technology journalists, embargoes are known as nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, after the term for the legal contract used to formalize the arrangement. NDAs are commonly to control the timing of news regarding new computer hardware and software.

Proponents of embargoes argue that they promote journalism that is accurate and thorough by giving journalists sufficient time to digest technical material and interview a range of experts. In addition, according to Eliot Marshall's 1998 discussion of embargoes, embargoes on medical journals are timed so that physicians will have received their journals by the time news is disseminated, so physicians will be able to read the journal articles in question and answer patient inquiries in an informed manner. Empirical support for these claims is equivocal at best.

Critics of embargoes, as reported by Vincent Kiernan in 2004, argue that this system plays on journalists' penchant for pack behavior to highlight research from a few journals while discouraging journalists from pursuing independent investigative research into science and technology institutions.

A common error is confusing an embargo with the Ingelfinger rule. Many journals follow versions of the Ingelfinger rule, named for Franz Ingelfinger, who enunciated it in 1969, according to the article “Definitions of 'sole Contribution,'” while editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. The Ingelfinger rule seeks to restrict the actions of scientists by declaring that the journal will not publish studies that have been previously disseminated to the public, but the rule does not regulate what journalists can do with information that they do obtain.

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