During my days as a newspaper reporter and editor, public relations professional offered me exclusive interviews or stories fairly regularly. Usually, everything went off without a hitch. My publication would have the story first, and everyone was happy.

But a few times, I got burned. That story appeared first in competing publications.

In each case, the PR person had some excuse, but it all came down to the same thing: At least two journalists were given access to the same information at roughly the same time.

There might be some reasonable explanations, but journalists really won’t care about them. Promising an exclusive and then not delivering is seen by journalists as a serious offense. Promising an exclusive and then delivering it first to a competitor is an unforgiveable, traitorous offense.

I’m going to spend the next two columns talking about exclusives. In this one, I will define two important terms, then get to my usual Do’s and Don’ts. Next week, by the way, I’ll discuss how you should decide who should get an exclusive.

Exclusive: This means only one reporter has access to critical information that will be published at a certain time. When an exclusive is promised, no other media should have access to the information.

Embargo: This is the date that the exclusive is supposed to be published or aired. Until the embargo date, no other media should have access to it.

So with those in mind:
DO approach one journalist at a time for an exclusive. If the first begs off, quickly move on to the second.
DON’T give one journalist some of the information and another journalist different information on the same subject. An exclusive should be an all-or-nothing proposition.
DO make certain you are in sole control over releasing the information surrounding an exclusive. If others also have that control, you must make sure they don’t share it with others.
DON’T share the information with other journalists until after the embargo is over – even on an embargoed basis. Overly competitive journalists might break the embargo.
DO set clear ground rules. For example, if the embargo date comes and goes without a story, is it permissible for you to shop the story to someone else?
DON’T promise more than you can deliver. Maybe this goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Make sure your client is really willing to share the information before you offer it.

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