6 A.M.

Given our earned media experience and editorial knowledge honed through years of creating and co-producing stories, PR is best suited to partner with paid media.

Students of PR should take heed of Samuel Insull, chief of staff to Thomas Edison, as an early supporter of public relations.

Edelman and the Rise of Public Relations has been a year in the making, with Franz Wisner conducting hundreds of interviews and sorting through my father’s school years and war-time memorabilia. The result is the first real history of public relations as a business and a lovely tale of a family committed to the success of the enterprise.

I went with SAP co- chief executive, Bill McDermott, to the Frederick Douglass Center, a Children’s Aid Society (CAS) facility built in the 1950s which offers after-school programs and community services to the underprivileged in the neighborhood.

I have just read the new book, Rethinking Reputation, by John Doorley and Fraser Seitel, former chief communications officers at Merck and Chase Bank, respectively. The central theme of the book is that reputation depends on good behavior and honest communications.

I went to the 90th birthday bash for the Harvard Business Review last night at Lincoln Center. The magazine had a glittering array of speakers. Here are a few of the important lessons from the evening:

It is PR’s time to lead because the world has changed. Communications can no longer be top-down and controlled; in fact, credibility is conferred horizontally by conversation and the wisdom of the crowd.

Edelman received an award last night from the Committee for Economic Development for its efforts in diversity. We began the GWEN (Global Women’s Empowerment Network) program last year to increase the number of women in leadership roles at Edelman.

I spoke with political pros Steve Schmidt and Bob Shrum this morning to get their assessment of the marketing communications strategy for the Obama and Romney campaigns. I wanted to understand what lessons there might be for corporate reputation or brand marketing PR people.

I am sitting at the Muse Hotel in Midtown Manhattan with twenty colleagues from Edelman New York. We are the dispossessed of Lower Manhattan, as electricity was cut off on Monday evening during the storm.