What to do? The announcement message was recalled

I often receive Email messages containing a provocative press release that is designed to launch a product, a new service offering or a partnership or alliance.  Sometimes, really eager PR folks will follow up and call me as well.

From time to time, those PR folks call or send an Email message pulling back the announcement. Usually, this has something to do with final preparations to launch a product or service are not yet completed. If the delayed or canceled announcement has something to do with a partnership or alliance, one or more of the partners were not happy with the final messaging and wanted time to work to fix it.

Once the press release is in the hands of an analyst and it was pulled back, what's an analyst to do? Here are a few thoughts:

If the press release was held under a non-disclosure agreement or embargo until a specific date, then the pull-back means that the analyst should discard the message and wait for the revised message to appear. On many occasions, a replacement message never arrives indicating that announcement has died an ignominious death.

If the press release was dated the day the message was received, technically, the analyst can consider it fair game.

I usually will do my best to comply with the PR folks' request. If I've published something before the message was recalled, I usually will edit the article to say the announcement was pushed back or canceled.

If I haven't published an article, I am usually glad to hold off publishing something until later.

The momentary pleasure of getting something on the Internet and out to subscribers first, is quickly overwhelmed by the broken or destroyed relationship with the supplier or suppliers in question.