AMD NDA DOA

I understand why businesses want to control information, both from a competitive information view as well as marketing. But there are times that a company squeezes so tightly that it bursts a blood vessel. That has happened with chip maker AMD. Apparently AMD was holding some event in Singapore and had a non-disclosure agreement so draconian that a journalist walked out of the event and spilled the beans. According to Techarp, the agreement required the journalist to "send any stories to the vendor before his newspaper can publish it."

AMD categorically denied it, and now Techarp has spoken with the journalist who noted that the terms technically required him to send in any article in advance to AMD for approval:

The PR person even had the temerity to say that it was "just paperwork and that everyone, be it a president or prime minister, had to sign this document". That was when Don walked out.

If AMD PR people think they have done themselves any good, they are fools. They've antagonized the press in a way to make it hostile, the story has hit Slashdot.org (meaning tech people all over the world are reading it), and they haven't gotten any better control over their "story" (the PR jargon for what is going on).

There was a time when people in PR generally first spent extended periods of time as journalists. This let them understand the mindset, including how to craft stories to be of interest to the press, and avoid the major pitfalls. Perhaps corporations should stop recruiting people right out of college and look, instead, for those who have spent time in the trenches and have something more to offer than vague corporate-speak and a lot of hand-waving.