Should PR be about selling a product at the expense of the truth?
That’s the question psed by the Gaurdianas it looks at Edelman (registration required, but worth it). Again, I think Richard’s comments are being quite agressively misconstrued:
According to Edelman, we – the PR fraternity – don’t have to worry about journos picking apart our press releases and checking our facts any more. We can counteract negative stories in the press simply by posting the real story on a blog.
What I think Richard meant – or at least what I heard – was that transparency is now available to us in real-time (rather than requiring mediators) – and that we can correct what the media chooses not to check, or correct. This is a pretty cynical piece – pretty much reflecting the tone between PR and Media: “No one has a monopoly on truth and nor should they. As we all know, the truth is relative – even in PR. And the truth is that PRs, just like the journalists who sit on the other side of that information superhighway, are obsessed not so much with The Truth as The Power.” I suspect this is the case more for Media than PR – especially those on the Agency side.
Holmes has a good analysis of the piece:
But more to the point, Borkowski seems to completely misunderstand the blogosphere, which actually does the fact checking job the mainstream media has abandoned. It’s far more difficult to get spin or deception into the blogosphere than it is to get it into the mainstream media. That’s the attraction for someone like Edelman: a medium where everyone gets to ask his or her own questions and make up his or her own mind, rather than being fed a story that a journalist has decided is the absolute truth.
I grew up with the notion of the fouth estate firmly embeded in my mind. 20 years in PR has pretty much eroded any view of the media as 100% independent, 100% professional – think unwavering committment to truth. There are some exceptions – people you’ve got to respect. I’ve equally seen some horrors in th PR side.
What the “fifth estate” – the blogosphere – brings to the table is a balancing of these two competing forces by enabling immediate dialog and distribution of the stuff that matters. It shift power back in favor of the people that care to be informed.
The One Crucial Idea…
Down at SXSW they are chatting about (MP3) the Wisdom of Crowds – a book I really enjoyed. There is a key point in the book that gets drawn out over at Bokardo – it’s as much about those who draw out the wisdom of the crowd as it is about the crowds wisdom. Take Google and their Pagerank algorithm as an example.
This notion has special significance for communicators. In a Web 2.0 world you should be monitoring and measuring those that are drawing out the dialogue as much as you and the media. For instance, what appears on Google News or Digg.
Next generation communications measurement systems will give you insight into – and weight accordingly – the “aggregators” of content. They will also start to give consideration to the conversations taking place on those sites. Take Digg as an example. Here it isn’t just about aggregation, it is about the communities assigned weighting of that content and the associated commentary.
The new dimension in communications measurement will be relevance. Not as measured by abstract algorithms or as determined by communicators. But as measured by the wisdom of the crowd.
Good thinking on blog policies…
Trevor Cook has some good comments from an Aussie lawyer at Baker & MacKenzie on developing a blog policy. He also points to a piece in one of the big rags in Australia. Thanks Trevor!
The Blog In The Corporate Machine
The Economist (subscription
required) speaks to the fact that while bloggers can be vicious, but they
can also help companies avert disaster. What is interesting is the number of measurement companies they point to – Biz360 also offers good services in this
area.
The spread of
“social media” across the internet—such as online discussion groups, e-mailing
lists and blogs—has brought forth a new breed of brand assassin, who can
materialise from nowhere and savage a firm’s reputation. Often the assault is
warranted; sometimes it is not. But accuracy is not necessarily the issue. One
of the main reasons that executives find bloggers so very challenging is
because, unlike other “stakeholders”, they rarely belong to well-organised
groups. That makes them harder to identify, appease and control.
Steve is quoted. There is alot of
focus right now on issues tracking as it relates to blogs. This is a critical
activity for any communications team and will drive all kinds of new revenue
streams for the measurement companies. What is equally important is the need for
a focus on measurement of the effectiveness and reach of social
networking/media/communications – whether it is happening to you, or you are
driving it in the market.
Are You Generation C? Are we masters of the Youniverse….?
… or are you a HEDI? Entertaining read…
GENERATION C
Aka Masters of the Youniverse. The C stands for content, but it may as well stand for control freak. Rarely satisfied with their lot, this tribe (mostly male, mostly 25-40) “create their own content”. It’s also C for conceited, as they all think they’re hot enough to write a novel, make an iMovie, be a garage-band star, become a citizen journalist (blogger). In fact, they’re the personification of gravanity (graffiti meets vanity) – the arrogant desire to make your mark in the public domain. Some fancy themselves as minipreneurs and indulge in eBay trading. Others settle for insperience – bringing luxury experiences into their homes via cineplexes, boom-boom rooms and spa-ties.
