Whoops! My Apologizes to the MBPC

Yesterday, I received an email from the MBPC containing a press report about an important study they're releasing tomorrow. I was so interested in the results that I failed to notice the fact that the report was "embargoed" until Sunday - and posted about it. I pulled my blog, but, given the fact that I didn't check my email for hours, it was well after I actually posted it. It was a serious mistake and I regret it.

Though I've been blogging for about two years now, I'm still new to some aspects of the press - such as embargoed reports. Needless to say, it's only fair to expect every outlet to have an equal opportunity in reporting on information that a non-profit has spent a large time researching - and the MBPC was being more than generous in personally sending such important studies in advance to lowly bloggers such as myself. Certainly, I wouldn't want to put the information contained in the report in jeopardy of not being as widely distributed, because some pesky blogger ruined the story for newspapers and TV. The information contained therein is highly important for the entire state, which is why I blogged about it in the first place.

So again, my apologizes to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, as well as all media outlets who received the same information and actually abided by the rules. I've often preached, along with many bloggers, that the reason why the blogosphere is a trustworthy place is because each blog lives and dies by the respect it earns. Part of that respect comes from the communities in which each bloggers interact with. Obviously, today, I lost some of that.