Gizmodo’s Public Pool Inadvertently Breaks Iranian Embargo


white-house-goodOn Thursday night, the White House sent out the details of their new Iranian policy, but under embargo until the next morning. However, Public Pool, an automated website run by the Gizmodo Media Group that publishes the White House pool reports and Administration releases, published the report late Thursday night, breaking the embargo and the news. The tweet for the post garnered 125 retweets, an anomaly for an account that would typically consider 5 retweets going viral.

Public relations officials will oftentimes send reporters information “under embargo,” meaning they cannot publish the breaking news until a certain time.

A search of Public Pool’s archives does not show any other embargoed emails having also been published. It is not clear what caused the automated system to publish this email. Gizmodo Media Group did not respond to a request for comment. The automated publishing program is written so that emails are not publicized and it seems like it has been written to not publish embargoed releases.

The White House did largely escape unscathed because of the timing of the embargo release. The article was published at just about 10:00 PM ET and the information about the deal was embargoed until 5 AM. Furthermore, the release did not provide full specifics as to what the President was intending to announce regarding the Iranian nuclear deal.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.


About Tyler

Tyler is the chief media reporter for TKNN, with the news organization since its founding in November of 2010. He has previously served as chief political reporter and chief political anchor for TKNN.

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