One of PR’s most influential is blogging – Paul Holmes of the ‘must read’ Holmes Report. I’ve been a long-time reader of the report – the news content, while important, isn’t what makes the subscription worth it’s weight in gold – it’s Paul’s editorials and commentary. Not having to wait for a .pdf each week is going to be a good thing!

One of his first posts is a sizzler on the hot issue of paying media for editorial:

Paying Journalists is Wrong on Ethical and Pragmatic Grounds:
Retired army public affairs specialist Charles Krohn launches a
spirited defense of efforts by the Pentagon to buy favorable coverage
in Iraq, in a Baltimore Sun column that ran under the headline "Paying foreign media makes sense if it helps us win the war."

I’ll
get back to what I consider to be a mighty big "if" in a minute,
because we can deal with the ethical aspect of this first. The only
reason to buy editorial coverage (rather than ad space) is because
editorial coverage is inherently more credible. The intention is to
deceive people into believing you earned coverage, when in fact you
bought it.

I’m with Paul. How can you foster the existence of real democracy with the presence of pay-to-play with the media?