Embargo & newsroom timezone planner

Copy the embargo exactly as the release states it — the date, the clock time and the zone it is quoted in — then convert it once for the whole desk.

1. Enter the embargo date and time as written on the release.
2. Set the source timezone to the zone the release quotes. If it says “00:01 ET”, choose America/New_York; if it says “09:00 BST”, choose Europe/London.
3. Add the newsroom zones you file into — bureaux, syndication partners, or the desk that publishes overnight.
4. Read the table: each row shows the same instant, with the local date and day of the week so you can spot when it lands a day early or late.
5. Use “Copy for the news list” to paste a clean summary into your news list, planning doc or newsroom chat, and share the URL so colleagues load the same setup.

An embargo is a simple deal: a source shares material in advance so journalists can report it properly, and journalists agree not to publish until an agreed moment. Research journals, listed companies, statistics agencies and government departments all work this way, because it lets reporters read the underlying documents, seek independent comment and prepare graphics rather than rewriting a summary at speed.

The risk is that the agreed moment is a single instant, but it is quoted in one city's clock. An embargo of 00:01 ET is 05:01 in London for most of the year and 16:01 in Sydney — the following day. A desk that reads “00:01” as its own local time either sits on a story for hours or, far worse, publishes early. Breaking an embargo is one of the few things that gets a title removed from a distribution list entirely, and it can jeopardise the relationship for every reporter on the masthead.

Converting once, at the point the release lands, and pasting the result into the news list removes the guesswork for everyone downstream: the reporter writing it, the sub scheduling it, the social desk queuing posts and the newsletter team setting a send time.

Daylight saving is handled automatically

This planner uses IANA time zones — Europe/London, America/New_York, Australia/Sydney — rather than fixed offsets like GMT+0 or EST. That means it applies the daylight saving rules actually in force on the date you enter, including the awkward two-to-three week windows each spring and autumn when the UK, EU, US and Australia have already changed clocks on different dates and the usual difference between two cities is an hour out. Southern hemisphere zones move in the opposite direction, so a London-to-Sydney gap ranges from nine to eleven hours across the year.