Press and embargo policies

We have a clear embargo policy with recognised media organisations and journalists. We issue press releases ahead of publication to allow journalists and broadcasters to write a sensible, considered story about the articles that are press released. In return they undertake not to publish their stories before the embargo date. This is a well understood policy, to ours and the press’s mutual benefit, and in general the press observe it.

We do not “tip off” any other people or organisations who might like to know ahead of time what an article says.

The reasons for this are:

• Practical issues: It is hard to define exactly who might like to know in advance about an article in The BMJ – and particularly hard to draw a line of what sort of organisation should fall within the line. The deal with the press is easily defined, well understood, and The BMJ benefits from it as well as the press.
• We can’t be sure that organisations won’t leak information.
• It's a distraction from our job of publishing the best stuff we can.

NB: This policy does not mean that we and our writers won’t contact people who are mentioned in articles to gain a comment that we might include in the article.

If an organisation is contacted directly by a journalist for a comment on a particular paper, while under embargo, we do send them a copy of the paper to enable them to make an informed comment. But we always stress that the material is under embargo and should not be circulated.