The breaking of media embargoes comes pretty high on the list of editors’ pet hates. What’s an embargo? It’s the date and time before which we ask journalists to refrain from reporting something we are due to publish. We issue a press release a few days beforehand, and, because journalists benefit from a system that gives them all a fair run in preparing their story, breaches are rare.

Why am I raising this now? Because a study in this week’s print journal—on the effects of caffeine in pregnancy (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2332)—was reported in the press before we published it online (2 November Sunday …