Asian Energy Advisors

One of the ways I keep up-to-date with issues in the Philippine power industry is through newspapers. And I’ve recently been observing here, here and here on newspaper disclosures of information on the Masinloc deal and the role of the blogosphere.

I deeply respect the roles that both public relations and news reporting play. But I’m always asking myself: is what I’m reading news or PR? And then, whether it’s news or PR, I implicitly make a judgment as to the credibility of what I’m reading.  We all do this.

Whenever I see a newspaper article without a byline, I immediately discount it big time.  There’s zero disclosure.

Now, opinion journalists in the major newspapers with regular columns are different. They are, first and foremost, professionals in their field with lots of experience, so right off the bat they get my attention. But there is typically minimal disclosure within the article.  And I still ask: is this news or PR and I still evaluate based on what and how they present, each time.

Richard Edelman, Managing Director of one of the worlds largest PR firms, comments on a speech given last week by Alex Jones, press and public policy director of the Shorenstein Center at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Alex and Richard both note that PR people have to stay with credible advocacy. Here’s an interesting quote from Alex:

"If PR is perceived as trying to replace traditional news, it will work against PR. There will be a serious backlash. It is bad for PR if serious journalism is swept away. It is bad PR to have VNRs [video news releases] without attribution."

"There will be unlimited media choices in which PR people can embed advocacy messages. But the audience will be very fragmented in reach and in attention. In fact, the audience will be cynical about the messages and will discount them. The Web may offer a chance for unmediated delivery of messages but you lack the credibility of the journalistic filter."

We’ve learned this lesson in integrity as early as 2001.

On this day..

• Consumer Advocacy - 2008
• WESM Update for 5-27-07 - 2007
• wesm-5-27-07b.png - 2007
• wesm-5-27-07a.png - 2007