An excellent
rant by Tom Murphy over at PR Opinions. Tim Bray has tried to pass expert
comment on the 'New Public Relations' except that he's pretty much described what some of us did in the 'Old Public Relations'.
There is so much bullshit around at the moment (Tom tells you how to
find it so I won't bother). All this nonsense about blogging replacing
the old 'command and control' PR with "conversations" and "people that
do the work tell the story".
Sorry to disappoint all you blogging evangelists out there but that's
always what PR has been about. I admit there are a hell of a lot of PR
people out there who mistakenly think they are just a cog in the
marketing machine. But they are wrong, they've always been wrong.
Public relations tools are absolutely part of marketing. But public
relations is far more than just media relations, events and newsletters.
Real public relations has always been about how an organisation
behaves. That's what has the biggest effect on its reputation. That's
what PR looks after. It always been about conversations. The best 'PR'
has always been word-of-mouth and what people working on the frontline
have to say.
So if Tim
et al want to have a go at someone they might be better off looking at the advertising industry.
