Today I did something I didn’t mean to do, but I did it and can only apologize.

Getting the morning started, a Tuesday morning, which means I write rants about the week’s fantasy football results before starting work, I noticed several emails coming through.

One of them was from Les Atkins on the Rapids Jam concert announcement. I knew Elizabeth Branham was to appear on Good Morning Lake Country, that was going to be the official announcement for the festival.

What I failed to see in the email from Les was a note that told me to hold it until 8 a.m. I didn’t see it and posted to rrspin.com and its Facebook page.

I not only goofed, I made a severe ethical error which I can only meagerly beg forgiveness for and assure WPTM, Les, Elizabeth and Gil and Liz Cunningham that this was purely a mistake and came from me not taking the time to thoroughly read the email.

This is what happens when you don’t pay attention and I didn’t pay attention. I mistakenly thought since the press release was sent, that meant it was ready to publish and I let it go.

It was a mistake that will never happen again but right now I’m sure I will pay dearly for it because Elizabeth has been one of the biggest supporters of rrspin.com since it began and I feel as if I have betrayed not only a business associate, but a friend when clearly I didn’t mean to.

I’m sure many of you wonder what the big deal is. In journalism, it is a big deal to break an embargo, intentional or not and I’m usually careful about things like that, making sure it’s OK to release before posting.

This morning, I assumed, assumed that because the press release was sent everything was OK. Worse than that, I failed to read the whole release, especially the top portion which clearly said hold for 8 a.m.

I was unethical and although I didn’t mean to be I was. I cheated the organizers of the events, I cheated other media in the area — WPTM and the Daily Herald — I cheated the readers.

I have few options in this matter because no matter what I say I will be thought of as someone who can no longer be trusted and that’s what hurts the most by unintentionally breaking this embargo.

As my close friends know, I am a person who likes to be liked and while I have my flaws and have done things I shouldn’t have, acceptance is important to me.

The way my options stand right now, I can give this website up and be known as a failure or I can suck this up and hope those I hurt by doing this will forgive me. The options are few and what I will do right now is ask for forgiveness and hope I can be forgiven and work hard to regain trustworthiness from those I wronged this morning.

That’s how big a deal what I did this morning was. It may have been a simple press release to the readers but behind the scenes, what I did has huge implications for the future of rrspin.com. Among certain circles now I will look like a liar, someone who can’t be trusted, a hypocrite who preaches journalism ethics to anyone who will listen.

This will take some time for me to get over and the only thing I can do is take the hit and the potential loss of readers. That’s why what I did this morning was such a big deal and all I can do is ask for forgiveness from those I harmed and the readers of rrspin.com — Lance Martin