Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Is it possible to ban media from making news about your company in USA?

Staying off the radar usually works. Not going and talking to them will probably get you near 0 attention. But in some cases lots of people(even bloggers, media people etc.) use the product, so they will know about it and might want to talk/write about it.

Is there a legal way that companies can use so that media people can not post about them?

Note: If you are wondering why someone would want to stay off the media radar there are 2 clear reasons that I am aware of.

  1. Here whatsapp founder talks about getting distracted from work.
  2. In this video grupon founder says that because they were featured in TechCrunch almost every market in the world outside of USA copied them directly and made their work a lot harder to scale.

Note2: If there are other laws in other countries about this, or global laws, those would also be helpful.

Answer 3250

The first amendment guarantees freedom of expression in the US. And I cannot imagine a country with a semblance of free speech preventing a newspaper outlet from publishing a scoop that won’t bother the powers in charge. So your legal options are probably nil imho.

What you can do, however, is make friends with journalists as they contact you. Explain the situation. You’re still in beta, not ready for prime time, and sure as hell not ready to deal with a surge of eager users drawn by the attention they’re about to give you – yet.

Then thank them warmly for their willingness to write about you, and offer to get back to them when your big launch day approaches.

Finally, flip the conversation by probing them (“Oh, and by the way…”) for their opinion on how you should best leverage the media on your launch day, and everyone should walk away happy: you for not getting attention yet, and them for your willingness to make their own life easier.

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