10pm News Embargo

It does seem rather counter-productive. If it's news which people need to be aware of, then hitting the main BBC, ITV & Sky bulletins at 10pm would be the obvious choice.

Good news? Don't be silly! It's 2020!

Looks like it is this.

Yup. To be honest, @Peston had chapter and verse this morning anyway !

— Anne Alexander (@Annemariealex) September 8, 2020

Why would restrictions of 6 people be so noteworthy to be embargoed?

They're not just from the government, all sorts of news items or PR have embargoes.

I wouldn't say the press 'hate them', they are often useful to media outlets too, it gives them a chance to prepare better stories than they would with zero notice

No excuse for the briefings not to be back for announcements like this, or at least an announcement in Parliament.

Equally why on earth wouldn't the government want people to be aware of such restrictions.

I think the only explanation is that the restrictions seemingly won't be coming into place until Monday (according to the Metro).

It's obvious that they pick 10.30 so that the story runs through the whole news cycle tomorrow, starting with the papers and running till the 10pm bulletins the next night.

Personally I'd rather the Prime Minister announced things himself and that we heard them the first time from his lips, rather than drip-feeding via Peston, then a 10.30 embargo, then an appearance by the PM the next day

But why would it be embargoed until 10:30 at night 6 days before?!

I suspect it's not even an embargo. Clearly someone somewhere on Twitter has stated there's an embargo and in typical 2020 fashion its blown up out of proportion.

It's not going to be what you think it is, and will be one of those "oh is that it".

Without drawing into a political debate, you could say the CV stuff has been leaked to be a distraction, as has the 10.30 embargo to avoid peak bulletins.

I imagine that's unlikely, seeing as the people behind the vaccine were still talking it up a few days ago, just signed a deal with Australia and hoping they'll have enough data to be able to submit it for authorisation in the near future, which I imagine they wouldn't have been doing if the clinical trials were going badly enough for it to be declared no use already.