Richard Edelman tells us that he “learned his lesson,” when he was called to carpet about these now-famous comments at a PRWeek awards dinner:
“It used to be I would schmooze you and I was your flack,” said Mr. Edelman…“Today, if we want to get a message into the public’s conversation, we just make a post on a blog. If The Wall Street Journal goes after a client, we don’t have to accept that anymore. Let’s post the documents we gave The Journal; let’s show the interviews the newspaper decided not to show. You’re not God anymore,” he said.
In a post on Friday, Edelman wrote about the comments in his blog:
“I've learned my lesson – not to over dramitize (sic) to convey a point with a journalist, particularly during cocktail hours! Traditional media matters now more than ever. There is a continuum through on-line versions of traditional media into the blogosphere and that ultimately a great story can be told across all of these platforms.”
He also says that even the Edelman trust barometer shows that mainstream media are still the most trusted sources of information. And he comes down on the side of Tom Foremski, of Silicon Valley Watcher fame, to make press releases more user-friendly in the digital age.
His comment about the blogosphere and traditional media platforms being a continuum is an interesting one, and one that I agree with wholeheartedly. I am convinced that learning to connect the two in a powerful one, two punch is essential to the future of public relations.
I wonder how you (my smart readers) think that we can harness this synergy? I think we really need to start thinking win-win and get rid of this media-is-dead thinking.
