Jay Rosen, Chair of the Journalism School at NYU and Steve Rubel, a speaker at the blogon2004 event held at UC Berkley last week, discuss disintermediation and how PR is changing as consumers discover new ways of getting news. Here's a snippet of Rosen's comments:
I think public relations should first understand that to the extent that its art is a form of "spin"-whether it's reasonable spin, accepted spin, good spin, bad spin, terrible spin - it is selling a service for which there is less and less value, and less mind is paid to it. Spin was possible in the era of few-to-many media, and a small number of gatekeepers who could be spun.
My advice to PR people is to help citizens become more so-- more sovereign over information goods. Spin is not a good. Neither is a brick wall, or a blatantly one-sided story that cleverly coheres because it leaves out every single inconvenient fact. Public relations, if it wants to do good, should stand for real transparency in organizations, and genuine interactivity with publics. Want an issue in corporate PR? Freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of interaction for company bloggers: how do we make it a practical reality?
You can read the full interview on Jay Rosen's blog here. It's great - Jay speaks about his definition of participatory journalism, PR ethics and blogging, the difference in bloggers and credentialed journalists, and how journalism schools are (or are not) responding. This is another must-read for marketing professionals. (Another must-read is this article I wrote, although I am a bit biased.)
The blogon2004 blog itself has some great information and content gleaned from last week's event.
-aB
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