ABSTRACT
Offering an exclusive, meaning releasing our news to only one media outlet, can be a powerful incentive for a reporter or producer to tell our story. Offering a story exclusive can make the difference between our story being told or not. When exclusives are offered unnecessarily, the downside is that they are restricting, can limit our media coverage, and can make others in the media upset with us. An exclusive gives a reporter or producer some hope that other media outlets won’t cover the story first. One of the worst media blunders comes from providing a reporter with an exclusive to a story that is released to other media outlets with an embargo date, meaning the news should not be released before that specific date.
