Doing some research for my contribution to next week's New Communications Forum I decided to revisit some of the posts to Global PR Blog Week 1, and, found my attention drawn to some bold claims made by Jay Rosen, chair of the New York University Department of Journalism, in an interview with Steve Rubel, posted in July 2004. Here again, slightly edited, are some of the exchanges from PR Needs to Stand for Real Transparency:
ROSEN: I think public relations should first understand that to the extent that its art is a form of "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.
There are fewer who listen (or have to listen) and more who hear only dull propaganda, witless repetition, one of the many forms of mindlessness to which citizens are subjected.
I wonder if anyone, including Rosen, can meaningfully demonstrate that the increasing number of gatekeepers thrown up by the blogosphere has indeed coincided with fewer 'listeners' to PR?
He goes on:
Today many knowledge monopolies are breaking up, and this corresponds with what the British media scholar Anthony Smith once identified as a shift "in the locus of sovereignty over text," a shift toward the public.
My advice to PR people is to help citizens become ... 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.
RUBEL: Recently you told Bill Gates: "cure your blog of public relations, every hint and drop, or don't do it at all." What advice can you offer to PR pros who might be involved in helping their companies blog?
ROSEN: ... For the larger universe, I guess my advice would be: think of your bloggers as your organization's ombudsmen, ... and over micro matters as well as macro. With what guarantee of independence? is an issue with newspaper ombudsmen. It would rise up here. PR might have ways of making freedom of speech possible, and its pros may learn how to highlight the benefits in this form of openness.
RUBEL: What other words of advice (if any) can you offer public relations pros who are coping with the changing media landscape?
ROSEN: Hmmm. One thing comes to mind, a kind of warning. PR could be to weblogs what spam is to email: death of a social advance, the ruination of a perfectly good public instrument. It's worthwhile for professionals to imagine how it might happen. And I know there are some who sense what a disaster that would be.
Again, has this happened? Is the malign influence of PR bringing about the death of social advance represented by public sevice blogging? Is this predicted disaster unfolding?
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