Richard,

I agree with you - this is (potentially) a very profound time for our profession. However, what's been "disintermediated" recently seems to be the media and not PR. The bloggers and even sources like the Daily Show (as you've mentioned previously) are the "disintermediators" of media. And as your firm's research has so powerfully shown, people trust information that comes from "people like them" more so then they do media empires. That can be a neighbor or Jon Stewart or Oprah or a blogger, but I can't imagine it would ever be a PR guy or gal.

Good PR should always have been disintermediated from an organization's public persona. Let's look at issues management as an example, nobody wants to hear a message from the spokesperson - there's natural suspicion in that - they want to hear from the CEO.

The PR practitioner can serve as corporate conscience but that doesn't mean acting as the organization's public voice - whether on a soap box or in cyber space.

As practitioners we need to help our clients relate to this brave new world and that may mean disintermediating ourselves, but never our counsel.

I have been thinking about a lot of these same issues lately, and I think the key issue is this: personal passion and expertise are the lifeblood of blogs.

So then you have to ask three hard questions. #1 If you have a client with passion and expertise of their own, what can you as a PR person do for them? #2 If your client lacks passion and expertise, what chance do they have of running a successful blog anyway? #3 Have PR agencies ever been in the business of supplying passion and expertise (as opposed to crystallizing it and passing it on)?

I'm a marketing and PR writer, journalist, and blogger who experiences PR from all sides every day. I am more convinced than ever that a lot of our company's (www.gekkoproductions.com) clients should be blogging. I have been talking to them about how we can do for them to help them do that. But when I find someone who gets it, who really has the ingredients to build a successful blog, I'm convinced that the best thing for me to do to ensure their success is to get out of the way. If PR agencies find the same thing, it's hard to know what the long-term play is.

Dear Mr. Edelman,

As both a blogger and a recently-trained student of the Edelman way, I think Weinberger is missing a central point.

While skeptics may challenge PR's credibility, the utter subjectivity and unreliability of individual bloggers is evident even to cock-eyed optimists. Blogs offer an exceptional avenue for free speech, but there is no quality control on their output. While online digests like the Drudge Report or the Wonkette may make available intriguing information that might otherwise be suppressed, there are few consequences for their (sometimes serious) missteps.

This gives PR even greater potential as a catalyst for communication between individuals and corporate interests. The presence of a mediator who is accountable to both parties is essential to productive dialogue.

Thank you for addressing this interesting issue. In my future blogging, I will keep in mind your confidence in the medium's contributions to both PR and the public interest!

Yours,

Anna

I think there is real role for PR to instigate the conversation. I recently read a thought provoking essay about PR by Paul Graham.(The Submarine at paulgraham.com/submarine.html) It seems to me that communities are always happy to include people who start conversations. I can imagine a PR person who identified themselves as a real person who worked as a PR person for a company and who really knows a compnay or a product blogging about that product. They could be aritculate and thought provoking and they would have to be personal and authentic. They couldn't be a faceless nameless wizard behind the curtain. How is what Scoble just said today about Target any different than what an intelligent articulate PR person could say. The key of course would be honesty and real knowledge about the product, company or issue being talked about. But if a PR person really has a seat at the table they have a fantastic perspective to create the conversation and be a part of it. Does that make sense?

In any of these visions, though, (Ken's, Anna's, or Marion's) even in the best case scenario the role for PR is severely limited compared to the past.

Whether PR acts as counselor, intermediary, or converstation starter, how big of a shop can that take, and how much can you really charge for it? It used to be executives needed a PR firm to communicate (via traditional media) with their core audience at all. Now it seems all they need is a blog, some search engine optimization, and perhaps a counselor. Thanks to this technology we're using right now, there's less work to be done to connect the people with the ideas (Mr. Edelman) with the people who are interested in the ideas (Ken, Marion, Anna, and myself).

Also, I can't shake the notion that the blogosphere is a roadhouse full of bikers who hate fakers, especially people who are paid to hold certain opinions. You earn your chops here with a clean conscience and a bare soul.

I wonder how many PR people can hang with that crowd.

David Weinberger has some excellent points and we should listen. The Williams/VNR fiasco (and to a lesser extent, the Fleishman overbilling issue in L.A.)are defining points for our industry. PR has always been "behind the veil" and now we are being called into account. We have to apply self-therapy and that is never easy.

A positive note is this blog, and the many other PR bloggers out there willing to take their thoughts public. Bravo for Elliot Sloane, who quit the Council of PR Firms because of their "tepid" response to the Armstrong Williams affair. If I was going to hire a PR firm or paractitioner I would want to know that they have a strong policy on ethics and they understand and embrace new media.

PR has the potential to take a leadership role on raising the standards of ethical media practices. We shouldn't blow it by refusing comment or cowering behind wishy-washy responses. We should do what we counsel clients to do - admit the mistake, vow to correct it, take corrective action, move on. Maybe this period of forced self-reflection will lead to a new way of practicing our craft and offer valuable services to clients. I am enjoying this blog because of the important ideas being discussed, and the diverse opinions. I am also enjoying it because the CEO of a major global PR firm is willing to go public with his views. The veil is being lifted.

Ken,

I would happily step aside as spokesperson That should be best practice in any case You are right that our key role is advice and counsel

Henry,

I agree that we should get out of the way of the client But only after we have worked hard to listen to the marketplace To discuss various creative options To establish a multiplicity of channels Then to listen again so we can advise on way forward

Richard

Mark,
Thanks for writing
We have to raise our game...period
We cannot be perceived to be undermining the integrity of the media through pay for play Nor can we be intermediaries who are barriers to conversation or progress

Anna,

I see blogs as being accountable...in the long run Those of us in PR should try to provide bloggers with enough information to help to insure accuracy...and enough access to our executives so there is credible source Thanks for readking...by the way I am Harvard College 76 and Harvard B School 78 and my daughter is entering class of Harvard College 2009

Marion,

This should be our aspiration
PR person belongs at the C suite table as much as chief counsel employee relations director Then we have enough real authority to be spokesperson

Sorry to be so late jumping in. I was out of the country all last week. How convenient :) And now there are too many really interesting comments to reply to.

First, thanks, Richard, for presenting my side of our discussion.

And just to pick up one point: Marion, I too can imagine a knowledgeable, passionate PR person writing a blog about a product, and, as you say, being transparent about it. But that's going to be rare. Worse, the PR person is going to have to overcome our natural -- and, frankly, justified -- distrust of what she says because we'll know that she's being paid to "spin." And how free is she going to feel to criticize the client when she thinks she deserves it? The fact is that people who are paid to say good things about X are by that fact unlikely to be credible on the topic of X. So, while it is IMAGINABLE that a PR person could become a trusted, respected blogger about a topic for which she's paid as a PR person, I don't think that's a credible MODEL for PR going forward.

That's not to say that there are no models. E.g., I think there's more value than ever in the PR person being a "matchmaker," in Richard's terms: Putting the public in touch with people in the client's organization who have something real to say and are able to talk in a real, uncontrolled human voice. I.e., disintermediating PR.

Richard,

First I am loving the discussion thats going on here. I just have a couple of things. I noticed that in your original post you said:

"I believe that we can be content creators, in finding credible advocates and in bringing together various parties to resolve important issues..."

The issue I have is that (as others have mentioned)you are a paid advocate for a particular side of the story. I understand your potential as an industry if ethics and true impartiality were the standard not just in ideology but in practice across the board. I don't believe taht this is the case if you look at the recent(new one found yesterday) rash of paid reporters and "undisclosed" VNR's. More importantly than what I think, the general public seams to agree with me.

However all is not lost, yet. If the industry can get itself into the position of being the bringer/facilitator of honest 2-way communications in all forms of media but specificaly with your clients. This could prove to make the PR industry the new 4th estate since our press have lost their bite(much less the willingness to bite). With some good co-operation in the industry it could be the begining of the "new big boom" in PR! All while building trust with the public.

Thanks for listening to a non-PR person.

-matt

Matt we are certainly not there yet.But we have to aspire to this new vision of PR--smart, ethical , transparent
Not blocking mediating spinning those are the old words and old ways
Best practices will win the day

Richard

I want to believe the PR profession and its best practioners could serve as neutral (I realize pure objectivity is an ideal) third-parties, but as I want to believe the best news and investigative journalists do likewise. But I don't, because the money relationships corrupt often enough that I don't trust PR nor corporate news journalism. The PR profession's primary role is to persuade. I understand it as a subset of marketing. A PR firm, like a news organization, must trade services, readers/viewers/listeners, whatever, to money. That's fair. It's just that I can't buy it, can't take PR at "face value." No offense intended, just can't see how the leopard can change its spots. PR's best practices will only do better persuading, and if the metrics of persuasion are the appropriate metrics, then all right. If PR becomes transparent in revealing its money relationships, well, that will be interesting...

BTW, my church, the most idealistic AND realistic organization I know, has to deal with similar issues of achieving an altruistic mission and still keeping the lights on. It works, but then we have just that, a mission that is bigger than us. (There's another fundamental difference, but that's another conversation.) I don't expect PR to be a religion, I just mention this because I think that until you change the fundamental mission of PR, best practices will just be more of the same.

Henry,

I am not suggesting that PR firms are objective Simply that PR firms would be smart to avoid making unsubstantiated claims That we have to live up to a higher standard given our wired world Because our content may well go direct to end user And if it is wrong then the whole industry suffers And if we buy our way onto the page then the media and PR industry suffer Thanks for writing

Richard