PR Hyperbole Reaches New Heights

I know I must be pissing people off about this social press release thing when I am compared to George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Eric Eggertson goes over the top:

[from Common Sense PR - Don’t Kill the News Release Quite Yet]

The “replace news releases with blogs” idea reminds me of Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush explaining to the world that once their infrastructure was destroyed, the Iraqi people would rise up and create a democratic utopia in the vacuum created by the unseating of their dictator.

It’s brilliant in its simplicity. As long as hundreds of thousands of businesses, governments, non-profits and ad-hoc groups around the world start to use blogs to conduct ongoing conversations with the people who are interested in them, there won’t be any communications problems.

As happy as it would make many communications people to permanently eliminate news releases and staged photo opportunities, the fact that these PR tools have survived is a testament to their effectiveness at getting information into the hands of people who need it - journalists, analysts, and others who read and write the news either through news wires, or through the media.

[emphasis is Eggertson's]

Yes, I am the man behind the War in Iraq. I admit it.

But, to abuse the war-making metaphor, I am in fact suggesting that the corporate PR types and their PR company supporters lay down their arms and come up with their hands up. We, the edglings, have them surrounded.

I really do believe that they should stop what they are doing and join the open conversation that is going on out here, at the edge. They should stop pushing information that they know to be false, like phoney quotes, overdone product claims, and news flashes of dubious importance. They should stop crafting "messages" to broadcast through various "channels" to their various "audiences". [I can't tell you how many times PR folks have explained to me that social media is "just another channel" that can be "exploited" like TV, radio, and print journalism.]

And I have never asserted that communicating with people via blogs won't lead to problems: they are just significantly better problems than the ones surrounding conventional PR; and there will be fewer PR people involved.

Not that I have anything against PR people, per se: some of my best friends are PR people. But the PR fraternity has a large conflict of interest, here, as if I needed to point it out. This is their livelihood, after all. Just like print journalists a few years ago, PR folks are simultaneously explaining that social media is great ("let's exploit this new opportunity to push our messages to the bloggers and their audiences") while at the same time avoiding the difficult truth: it is going to revolutionize their world. They are going to have to rethink everything, not just add a few social touches to the status quo.

And I am unsure about the conclusion that the current existence of the press release is due to its effectiveness. Personally, I think it is on its way out. The only truly critical aspect of press releases [as I said in a post yesterday, Social Media and Public Relations: The Press Release Is Dead] is the role that the news wires play in ensuring the identity of those behind the press release. And, as I suggested, we should simply create a non-profit and develop technology that would guarantee the verification of identity in social media. That would take that activity out of the hands of the news wire companies, and replace it with a distributed model better suited for the Internet.

tags : death of the press release eric eggertson stowe is a war criminal

Comments

[Eric Eggertson]

Over the top? I haven't brought out the big guns yet! ;-)

I wasn't actually trying to suggest you devised the plans for invading Iraq, just that in the pursuit of one goal, the effect on another group can get overlooked, or underemphasized.

I'm all for getting PR people involved in creating communication systems that allow people to interact better, and then getting out of the way.

I don't actually oppose any of the things you're proposing, except the idea that there's a predetermined best method for organzations to communicate with whoever they need to communicate with.

Companies, charitable organizations, community groups, city governments, universities and other groups are always going to need ways to post information, raise awareness about new stuff, solicit suggestions, and interact with journalists and others who need more information from them.

Adding 100 million blogs to the mix isn't necessarily going to help them any more than issuing a billion news releases has been helping them in the past. Less crap and more straightforward discussion is a great ambition for an organization, no matter what industry it's in.

As for executive quotes, the news media have trained executives and PR folks over the decades to produce that particular commodity, because the media wants to maintain the impression of direct contact with the leaders of the organizations they write about. Sometimes those quotes are e-mailed or dictated word for word by the executive involved, and sometimes not.

[Eric Eggertson]

One more thing: My Iraq war analogy was mostly prompted by Scoble's post, which was a bit less nuanced than yours, and seemed to suggest that blog posts of product demos would meet everyone's information needs.

That sort of approach has a very Rumsfeldesque quality to it.

[jamescoops]

nice linkbait ...