Holly Hansen Breaks The News
After Violating U of H Embargo Rules, Can the Right-Wing Reporter Be Trusted To Follow Basic Norms of Journalism?
Last week, Holly Hansen from conservative outlet The Texan, prematurely posted the results of a major pre-election poll conducted by the University of Houston’s Hobby School. Disregarding an agreement respected by every other legitimate media outlet in Houston, Hansen shared a topline summary of the results on X (screenshot below) nearly a full day before the embargo required by the researchers.
Renee Cross, Senior Executive Director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs, confirmed to The Headliner that Hansen was forced to remove her post:
“Ms. Hansen was given the survey findings yesterday [Thursday] under embargo. We were made aware of it and immediately asked for the removal of the tweet.”
We’ve reached out to several local journalists who were scooped by Hansen to get their take on Hansen’s post. Andrew Schneider, Senior Reporter for Politics and Government for Houston Public Media told Headliner he was unaware of Hansen breaking the embargo:
“Generally, our practice at HPM is to honor such embargoes when they are requested as a condition for an interview or the release of a report. I can’t speak to Hansen’s decision making process that led her to break the embargo, and it is up to the Hobby School to decide how to respond to her action.”
Cross declined to say whether Hansen would be provided with embargoed news from the school in the future.
Zoom Out: Embargoes are commonly employed by PR flacks as a way to provide journalists sufficient time to process the significance of lengthy reports and surveys, conduct interviews with experts, and do the basic tasks of reporting - mostly without concern that they’ll be scooped by others. Ground rules on when to publish are clearly articulated in exchange for receiving newsworthy information ahead of time. It’s a longstanding practice in mainstream journalism and these “gentlemen’s agreements” are rarely broken.
Why it matters: The breach of trust between The Texan and the Hobby School raises more questions about the role fringe and partisan outlets play in covering local politics. As newsrooms continue to shrink, deep-pocketed partisans are increasingly funding “pink slime” sites like The Texan, Texas Scorecard, The Texas Voice, and more. While these sites are designed to appear objective, their primary purpose is to advance a specific, often right-wing, agenda. The Texan, for instance, is run by Konni Burton, a self-described 'conservative activist."