The final countdown

So Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows goes on sale at the stroke of midnight, and some people are completely losing it over the fact that some newspapers, including the New York Times, published a review of the book ahead of its release date.

In a Huffington Post entry titled "Harry Potter And The Fact That I Hate The New York Times," Rachel Sklar writes:

How on earth could you run a review of the last Harry Potter? To do so, you had to break an industry-wide embargo -- and not just any embargo, an embargo that is almost tantamount to a public trust at this point, given the worldwide hype about Harry Potter and the excitement and intense emotion generated by -- finally -- the end to this epic series. . . .

But, hey, you're the New York Times, boldly going etc. Why should you care about honoring a book that's been over a decade in the making just for the sake of getting a two-day jump on the competish?

Competish? What are you, TMZ?

The book reviews also drew the ire of J.K. Rowling herself:

I am staggered that some American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children.

Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. I mean, this isn't the Pentagon Papers we're talking about here. If you're a diehard Potter fan and are truly wary of spoilers, is it really that hard to turn the page or not click on the link? I read the NYT review—it doesn't give away any crucial plot points about Harry dying or anything. Instead, much of it seems to focus on the literary achievements of the book and the series as a whole (doesn't anybody care about anything besides what happens at the end?) It merely assured me that I should buy the book and that I'm in for a good read. If I were Rowling and her publishers, I'd be ecstatic that my book got such a great review from such a respected newspaper.

As for this embargo nonsense, BStu put it nicely over at Shakesville:

While someone violated an embargo, it wasn’t the New York Times or Baltimore Sun. The embargo here is specifically on retailers. A few obviously failed to uphold their part of that bargain and the publisher can take appropriate action against them for violating their contract.

Embargo has a very specific meaning in journalism, though, and neither the Times or the Sun violated an embargo. Basically, if the publishers had allowed those papers an advance copy of the book with the agreement that the review would not be printed until the book was released commercially, then the papers would have agreed to an embargo. As it stands, they were no party to such an agreement and bound by no ethical code to refrain from printing the review.

There you have it. Can everyone just relax now?