You have to feel some sympathy for UK finance minister George Osborne. Not only is he dealing with a stubbornly weak economy, but his top-secret annual budget presentation to Parliament was spoiled by an errant tweet. The incident was widely covered and featured plenty of hand-wringing and finger-pointing. But it’s amazing this sort of blunder doesn’t happen more often.
The release of the government’s annual budget is a sacred ritual in the UK, and it is always a carefully choreographed event. Every detail follows a familiar script, from the photo of the Chancellor of the Exchequer holding his “red box” to the lively speech-making in Parliament.
The media planning is no less scripted, too, with the evening newspapers receiving advance copies of the budget with a promise that they will not publish until the Chancellor speaks. This embargo, as it is known, enables the government to get its message out quickly and gives news organizations adequate time to write about a complex and important topic.
So it’s not surprising that when the Evening Standard newspaper leaked the budget there was an uproar from both the government and rival news organizations.
Embargo-breaking isn’t new but it is rare. This incident was especially notable because the breach happened on social media, when a junior editor at the Standard tweeted the front page. Since then, there have been howls of outrage, fulsome apologies and promises of an official inquiry.
But at a time when social media has become so pervasive, it’s remarkable that this sort of thing does not happen more often. Every news organization is just a keystroke away from blasting the news to millions.
And it’s not just traditional news organizations that are in this precarious position. Google suffered an early release of its earnings a few months ago when Donnelly, a financial printer, sent a file out too early. And just a few weeks ago, the proposed merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax was announced prematurely because of a slip by an investor-relations service operated by Thomson Reuters.
The UK budget episode is unlikely to spell the end of embargoes. They’re much too useful a tactic for that. But now there will be a greater focus on who has access to embargoed news and the authority to release it. It’s an added degree of clarity and control that will be sought by news makers as much as news reporters.