Richard Edelman talks about PR and blogs
If you’re using the media to promote your products, you’ve heard about Richard Edelman’s public relations (PR) firm even if you never hired his company. The Wall Street Journal interviewed him recently and asked him what he thought about the need for transparency in PR and the rising use of the Web (Paid registration required). Read more for selected excerpts from this conversation.
For example, here is Edelman’s answer to the question “What PR practices are simply not acceptable?”
For me, and I think this applies in mainstream media as well as in the blogosphere, you’ve got to make sure that companies understand that they have to identify themselves, tell why they are doing what they are doing and make clear whatever financial arrangement there is with a sponsorship. This is an era of total transparency.
And here is what he said about blogs.
Q: Your enthusiasm for blogs is well known; you have even hired noted bloggers to help clients develop an expertise in the format. With so much attention devoted to blogs in recent months, are you concerned that the whole platform has developed into a fad?
I don’t think so. I really see that this area of self-expression is bridging, clearly, into mainstream media…[traditional media outlets] are trying to accommodate a world in which the citizen feels as if he wants to not just be a spectator but also in some way a player, or have his voice heard.
Do you agree with him? Will be blogs become part of the mainstream media?
Source: Brian Steinberg, The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2006 (Paid registration required)
