TechCrunch today put journalists and other news organizations on notice with Death to the Embargo.

We’ve never broken an embargo at TechCrunch. Not once. Today that ends. From now our new policy is to break every embargo. We’ll happily agree to whatever you ask of us, and then we’ll just do whatever we feel like right after that. We may break an embargo by one minute or three days. We’ll choose at random.

How did we get to this point? TechCrunch deals with PR people who “email a story to us as many as 20 times, and call every TechCrunch writer on their cell phones repeatedly. If we say we won’t write a story (which is most of the time), things often turn nasty.”

Sounds to me like we have a communication problem. According to TechCrunch, some PR people have “morphed into vultures” who will do and say anything to get a story published. Meanwhile, journalists are caught in a “race to the bottom” – pressured by a “competitive marketplace and decreasing advertising sales.”

Yes, there are some bad PR people out there. (Journalists, you have to admit that you’re not all perfect either.) But, just like there are excellent journalists who take the time to research stories and investigate real news, there are also good PR practitioners who simply want to help their clients communicate better.

Journalists: Continue to work with the good PR people. The ones who respect your time, deadlines and limited resources. PR pros: Be considerate of journalists. Understand that they are being forced to do more with less.

Also, keep in mind, there are two sides to every story. Just check out #journchat – a weekly discussion between PR pros, bloggers and journalists. Every Monday, these very people – who TechCrunch would lead you to believe are totally at odds with each other – engage in a fast-paced dialogue about important communication issues. This Monday they covered pitching tips, advice about navigating new media and general commentary about journalism.

#Journchat is real communication designed to break barriers and eliminate frustrations. As we all face mounting pressure from clients, readers and advertisers, maybe the goal should be to figure out how to work together instead of just ignoring professional standards and common sense rules.

Did you know the average worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper per year? Think of the trees we’re killing just so people can print e-mails (yes, people still do that) and massive PowerPoint presentations (sadly, everyone does not follow the 10/20/30 rule yet.)

We need a paper cut. (No, not the painful kind. The environmental kind.)

Here at Costa DeVault, we were amazed by that staggering number. So, we’re launching our own test to see if each person really uses approximately 190 pieces of paper a week. Starting today, our PR department is tracking every sheet of paper we use. Printer paper. Notepads. Envelopes. Notecards. Post-its. (That’s the one that will send us over the top. For these purposes, six post-its equal one full size page.) We’ll give consumption updates here and on Twitter.

How much paper do you use each week? Feel free to join us in this paper challenge. Leave your updates in the comments or tweet us your paper usage.

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

Want good press? Hire a journalist. That’s Dan Abram’s pitch.

If it were that simple, every business in the country would be lining up to get a journalist on the payroll.

Positioning working journalists as business consultants, former MSNBC newsman Dan Abrams has created a media-strategy firm to help businesses “navigate public-relations challenges.”

Reading the Journal’s article this morning sparked quite the conversation in our office – primarily focusing on the roles journalists and PR practitioners play in communicating news. Abrams Research seems to blur the line between journalism and PR. Let’s face it: A journalist taking money to consult with business is a media relations strategist. That’s just a fancy term for a PR person. Does this crossover present ethical challenges for the journalists? According to the society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics:

Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.

Presumably, a journalist coaching one of Abrams’ clients will be privy to sensitive information. If a traditional journalist were to get a hold of that news, they would write up the story and give it to their editor. But, now, are we to assume the consultant/journalist will sit on the story out of loyalty to their client? What happens if that person works for a newspaper and one of their colleagues gets the scoop independently? Does the client question the consultants’ loyalty?

The Code of Ethics also says journalists are to avoid conflicts of interest – real or perceived. And, as we are always telling our clients, perception is reality.

The credibility of news organizations has recently been called into question. In fact, a phrase – infotainment – has been coined to describe the meshing of news and entertainment. How will the news industry’s reputation be affected by the fact that some independent journalists aren’t quite so independent anymore?

Update: Looks like Gawker agrees with us, too. As they put it:

You can’t hire anybody who is in some way a practicing journalist, because then they’re being paid money to consult for somebody, which is a conflict of interest. This is really simple.

Update 2: Looks like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal won’t allow their reporters to work for the firm, citing conflicts of interest.