Based in Johannesburg, The Times newspaper now offers almost totally uncensored posts from a handful of selected bloggers. They call these writers blogumists. They call the postings blogumns. Here's a link to these posts which The Times describes as 'Exclusive daily musings written by bloggers for The Times.'  Here is a link to The Time's home page.

If you can't beat 'em, let 'em join you?

Having been a newspaper reporter once upon a time long ago, I wonder how the professional journalists at The Times feel about these citizen journalists? What happens if one of their blogumists writes a post critical of the print media? Are the writings of these blogumists fact-checked? As a blogumist for The Times, is the blogger afforded all the same protections generally associated with newspaper reporters? Is the newspaper liable for what it prints under the byline of a blogger? Since The Times says, "…these blogumns are left unedited 98.999% uncensored," what sort of copy represents the 1.001% of unacceptable content?

By the way, I'm guilty here of asking questions that I often get, and which I tend to categorize as just another rock in my shoe. Social media is supposed to be a little open ended and free-wheeling. If we wait around for everything to get figured out, we'll never get anything started.

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Back in the day, my technology clients used to like having open houses when they moved in to new facilities. They'd host elaborate and expensive briefings in New York for incremental new product launches. They'd announce their new web sites in news releases wired nationally. I thought all of that had gone the way of saddle shoes, but I still see new website news releases from time to time. Today was one of those times.

Today I came across this news release over Business Wire from Reed Construction Data. Ordinarily I wouldn't have paid any attention but it came to my desktop from a Google search using the term "social media." Curious to see if yet another major organization had finally figured out the social media magic, I drilled down. The release says: Future phases will include streamlined access to Reed’s subscription services, the ability to interact with social media features and more. And that eventually it will host Communities featuring editorial content and blogs on construction industry topics. Read the rest of this entry »

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Back in the day when traditional PR still had currency in a world then dominated by establishment media that told us what to think, I used to advise clients to never say "No comment" in an interview with the press. The expression, I told them, was a favorite of crooks on 60 Minutes. By using it, they came across as dodgey, guilty, even arrogant. Much better to say, "I can't answer that" or give an answer to some other question, no matter what question was asked.

Now in a somewhat ironic reversal, the establishment media in many instances seems to have its own "No comment" policy. Here, for example, is a somewhat glaring example. It's a story about the power of comments on blogs, written by Allan Hoffman of The Star Ledger and used online with permission by NJ.com. Good piece, except guess what? There's no way to leave a comment.

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