Comments on: The PR 2.0 ethical dillema – The Medium versus the Message http://chaotic-flow.com/the-pr-20-ethical-dillema-the-medium-versus-the-message/ Streamlined angles on turbulent technologies Sun, 13 May 2012 13:09:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: joelyork http://chaotic-flow.com/the-pr-20-ethical-dillema-the-medium-versus-the-message/comment-page-1/#comment-1596 joelyork Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:54:13 +0000 http://chaotic-flow.com/archives/34#comment-1596 Ken, Thanks for the comment. I think your point is absolutely accurate. I thought about delving into the reuse of news when writing the post, but decided to try and keep it focused for greater impact. In my mind, this is another area where postmodern theory applies in the Web 2.0 world. The question I think is whether real news generated by the NY Times and then applified on the Web can any longer be distinguighed from user generated content in its reach or impact, e.g, the Obama girl. And, it depends on your audience/product as to which is better to focus your PR efforts on. To me this is the fundamental ethical question in PR, each firm/professional will need to decide just how comfortable they are facilitating the distribution of unfounded opinion and simple entertainment when it is in the interest of the product or service being promoted versus only disseminating quality news through quality channels....that said...we should all be grateful that we still have trusted media like the NY Times. Distinguishing fact from opinion is fundamental to our democracy. But, not necessarily to marketing, particularly for emotinally driven B2C brands. Ken,

Thanks for the comment. I think your point is absolutely accurate. I thought about delving into the reuse of news when writing the post, but decided to try and keep it focused for greater impact. In my mind, this is another area where postmodern theory applies in the Web 2.0 world. The question I think is whether real news generated by the NY Times and then applified on the Web can any longer be distinguighed from user generated content in its reach or impact, e.g, the Obama girl. And, it depends on your audience/product as to which is better to focus your PR efforts on. To me this is the fundamental ethical question in PR, each firm/professional will need to decide just how comfortable they are facilitating the distribution of unfounded opinion and simple entertainment when it is in the interest of the product or service being promoted versus only disseminating quality news through quality channels….that said…we should all be grateful that we still have trusted media like the NY Times. Distinguishing fact from opinion is fundamental to our democracy. But, not necessarily to marketing, particularly for emotinally driven B2C brands.

]]> By: Ken Kadet http://chaotic-flow.com/the-pr-20-ethical-dillema-the-medium-versus-the-message/comment-page-1/#comment-1592 Ken Kadet Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:26:17 +0000 http://chaotic-flow.com/archives/34#comment-1592 I think you're right in the big picture, but you're underestimating the power of traditional media on the Web 2.0 world. I would posit that many bloggers would have little talk about if it wasn't for the New York Times, and every other professional journalism outfit. Yes, some bloggers are creating "news" -- but they are in the minority. Far more are generating original opinion about news and amplifying news reported elsewhere. Your New York Times story doesn't sit in the nytimes.com library. It gets picked up by other media. It becomes searchable -- and a key part of any good SEO strategy. More importantly, if it's a good story, or a provocative one, bloggers link to it and talk about it. None of this invalidates your thesis that PR firms and brand marketers need to figure out how to create community around their brands and to create and maintain conversations with customers rather than talking at them. Companies and agencies are going to staff and train around that. But at the core, there's a story to be told and a conversation to be had. News companies may be printing a paper, but their journalists are out there creating news, getting it online, blogging about it themselves, and giving the rest of us something a little higher on the credibility continuum to find, to talk about and post about and blog about -- and that counts for something in every communications every strategy. I think you’re right in the big picture, but you’re underestimating the power of traditional media on the Web 2.0 world. I would posit that many bloggers would have little talk about if it wasn’t for the New York Times, and every other professional journalism outfit. Yes, some bloggers are creating “news” — but they are in the minority. Far more are generating original opinion about news and amplifying news reported elsewhere.

Your New York Times story doesn’t sit in the nytimes.com library. It gets picked up by other media. It becomes searchable — and a key part of any good SEO strategy. More importantly, if it’s a good story, or a provocative one, bloggers link to it and talk about it.

None of this invalidates your thesis that PR firms and brand marketers need to figure out how to create community around their brands and to create and maintain conversations with customers rather than talking at them. Companies and agencies are going to staff and train around that. But at the core, there’s a story to be told and a conversation to be had.

News companies may be printing a paper, but their journalists are out there creating news, getting it online, blogging about it themselves, and giving the rest of us something a little higher on the credibility continuum to find, to talk about and post about and blog about — and that counts for something in every communications every strategy.

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