To Embargo or Not to Embargo?

From the blog Marketing Pilgrim, Jordan McCollum describes the situation with the quickly eroding, quaint notion of "embargo" as it applies to media events and press releases.

To embargo a release means to delay its publication until a specified date. For example many groups that release lengthy, technical reports to the public often embargo them for several days to give reporters time to read, digest and ask questions. Then, on the appointed day all news outlets are free to discuss the report publicly. However with the onset of social media many blogs no longer honor the tradition of the embargo and scoop the traditional media by discussing the topic at hand before the others go to print.

More on the topic of the Wall Street Journal embargo situation here. Specifically, the WSJ will hold a story if it's an exclusive, or if it's so big that they would lose a trusted source if they ignored the embargo. Otherwise, they might just do research on their own to get the story without the use of the PR agent that approached them.

Do you embargo?