Last week, Stanford University and McClatchy Company co-sponsored a free community forum to discuss the fate of the newspaper industry. It was entitled “Pressing Times: Can Newspapers Survive in the New World of Journalism," and at the conclusion it was noted by BeyondChron that at least three out of the four panelists believed that newspapers as we know them will not exist for much longer, but their hope is that what comes will still be a venue for quality journalism, despite the loss of the printed word.

It is no secret that newspapers are dying, the industry is threatened and that the Internet is the cause of it.

Marissa Mayer from Google said that there was room for everyone in Google news, because they are not in the business of doing journalism.

"We are computer scientists, not journalists," she said. Google's aim is to partner with "content providers," a term that made the three other panelists wince, and build a "monetization" model (wince again) with newspapers. Bill Keller of the New York Times leaned towards Mayer hopefully as she described an experiment by Google in which blogs were surreptitiously inserted into the listings of Google News, and readers could immediately tell the difference between "professional journalism" and blog commentary.

But let’s look at the future of online news as it would pertain to newspapers. Increased, highly-targeted online advertising, audio and video to supplement plain text, a 24 hour news cycle, user generated content…all things that are going to be required for our familiar friend that is black and white and read all over.

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Is this a true statement? …companies will be at risk until executives actively manage perceptions.

Manage perceptions? How about manage reality?

The statement comes from this very well-written, well-meaning, and well-intended item today from Ernie Landante of Novita Issue Communications. Mr. Landante's overview is in reference to a piece written by Jeffrey T. Resnick, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Opinion Research Corporation.

This statement gets to the heart of my complaint: Resnick argues that companies need an “early warning system” that monitors reputation and provides the intelligence for managers to take corrective action.  They key is to identify and fix reputational weaknesses before they distract the company from its core mission.

Now hang on a minute. Rather than 'fix reputational weaknesses,' wouldn't it be best to fix the real-time behaviors that create a rotten rep before hand? In a way, this statement by Resnick could be interpreted to mean that corporate decision makers don't know, or don't have to know, right from wrong, or ethical from unethical when making business decisions. They can find out later when they stick a thermometer someplace in the body of public or constituency opinion. In fact, you could argue this says business decision makers could make known unethical decisions but that as long as the perception of the company remains good, well… score one for the bad guys.

Reputational management reminds me a bit like Investor Relations. Sure, there are some constituencies that haven't heard about a company or are not up to speed on the latest developments that would affect a company's stock or reputational standing. But in the end, a good, well-run, highly profitable company doesn't need a huge 24×7x365 apparatus for the constant propping up of its stock or its reputation. The market isn't stupid. A good, well-run company that does the right things across the board, that operates ethically, will have a good reputation. No amount of after-the-fact 'reputational management,' is going to fix anything bad until or unless the reputational managers walk into the CEO's office and tell him or her to cut the baloney.

Reputational temperature taking for retroactive re-decision-making is no way to run a company. Running a great company is, however, a great way to establish a good reputation. See the difference? Am I the only one who understands this in this way?

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Martin Waxman on his blog entitled my(PR)palette wrote and posted an item today entitled "In Praise of News Releases." You have to read it to get the full effect of what he's saying. But to summarize, he still gets a thrill out of the "for immediate release" line. He writes:

They’re a great leveler of the corporate playing field. They help define the scope of a business communication, contain useful information that sets the stage for more dialogue (including facts about the company, names of spokespersons) and tell you who to call if you want to follow up.

With all due respect to Mr. Waxman who impresses me as a good writer, it has become my strong belief of late that news releases are about as useful and relevant as the Victorian era calling card left in the silver dish in the foyer.

To be more specific, news releases are not the great leveler of the corporate playing field. News releases from Fortune 100 companies rise to the top. News releases from nobodys go nowhere. The useful business communication is more often than not a bunch of hooey, which I know from first-hand experience having written skyscrapers full of hooey in news releases in my career. They do not invite dialog because they are a one-way, out-only communication and if a company really wanted dialog, they'd call people or offer the news on a blog.

Most importantly, permit me to ask these questions: if real news is at hand, do you need a news release? Two, does anyone really believe that if a reporter wanted to call a company he or she couldn't figure out who to call if there were no such thing as a news release?

News releases keep traditional PR firms in business. They keep the news release newswire services happy. They delight board members because in most cases they don't know any better. They help populate web sites with new content. They keep internal comms people busy doing presumably productive things. But news releases for the vast majority of small and medium sized companies do nothing except adhere to a game that can never be won and which delights the leading companies in any sector because the big companies can outspend, out-talk, and out news release any and all up and comers. Traditional corporate news releases are dead.

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