Krempasky.com

7 comments so far

1. 

   John Wagner

   March 8th, 2006 at 10:54 pm

   Why? Why must this issue parallel the way PR firms interact with traditional media? That’s counter to everything that we know about the blogosphere.

   Blogging is supposed to be about participating in conversations, not trying to manipulate them. What this episode shows is that some folks talk the “new media” talk but don’t necessarily practice what they are busy preaching.

2. 

   Krempasky

   March 8th, 2006 at 10:57 pm

   Well, John – conversation is obviously a tremendously important characteristic of blogging. But hardly the only one – and anyone who thinks so is just missing the forest for a couple trees. Besides, your criticism would of course posit that the only thing to this program is outbound email. It most certainly is not. It also completely ignores the notion of inviting small speakers, citizen journalists, if you will – to have the same access as their counterparts at traditional media outlets.

3. 

   Kami Huyse

   March 8th, 2006 at 11:14 pm

   The idea of offering access is a good one, but who of these bloggers will actually travel to Ark. on their own dime? Especially since bloggers are not typically paid for blogging (some are, I know). My point is, did this campaign actaully work? I am actually interested in learning from this and have asked my readers for the take-way lessons. One is that while we may treat bloggers like the MSM, they don’t necessarily act in the same manner, this can damage credibility of both the media, in this case the blogger, and the messenger. Two, is it good for the PR agency to become the story, and does it obscure the key messages that you are trying to get out for the client? Three, has this story enegized the critics, I found at least one new negative employee blog today, and I didn’t even do much digging

4. 

   Krempasky

   March 9th, 2006 at 7:32 am

   Kami, I think we’ll get a handful of folks to come to Arkansas. Alas, Bentonville is not a cheap plane fare – but we’re excited about the opportunity to include them just as we do traditional journalists.. As a rule – no, it’s generally not great for an agency to get ink. Is it working? I’d say so – we’ve got a great community of people interested in the issue. And as for critics, well – there *is* a $25 million dollar campaign against the company that operates significantly online.

5. 

   Kami Huyse

   March 9th, 2006 at 11:14 am

   You make a good point about your well-funded opposition, and overall an outreach to bloggers is a smart move. However, we need to start with the understanding that bloggers are not journalists, or at least they don’t follow the same codes or have the same motivations. They are more like the opinion page of the newspaper without an editor. Meaning, it is important for the PR function to find ways to enable the message getting out, without making itself the center of that message. A good way to do this is for WalMart to have a blog and this blogger to be another channel of communication with the appropriate bloggers. Maybe in conjunction with the resource-sharing part of the strategy. This is much more transparent and may serve to keep the agency from becoming the entire story. The WalMart message was really lost here, the best you can say is that it brought some awareness that there was a fight going on, but that awareness can be capitalized on by either side.

6. 

   Usher Lieberman

   March 9th, 2006 at 1:58 pm

   I would love to see news organizations open the black box of how they compile stories, I think it would be really healthy. Personally I thought the Times missed the broader question, which I cover on my blog which is whether or not Wal-Mart uses the blogosphere to engage in true dialogue at a grassroots level. That is newsworthy, the current campaign is not…its just retail PR using a medium that has already been covered ad nausea.

   I don’t see anything wrong with what Edelman and Wal-Mart are doing. Irksome to the Times? Yes. Newsworthy? No.

7. 

   Ashley Imsand

   March 14th, 2006 at 1:34 am

   I’m hoping to add a few comments from the perspective of a college student.

   I think it is true that ideally we would only want to rely on the blogosphere as an innocent conversational community with no hidden agendas. As I am always grasping to stay on top of current events, I can appreciate that many bloggers will openly give opinions about current issues, unlike many traditional mediums who claim to present raw news, but in actuality are now rampant with hidden agendas as well.

   The thing is, that although bloggers might have outside influences from time-to-time from companies like Wal-Mart to help promote that company, at least a major basis for the blogosphere is for such expression of opinions.

   But expression of opinion is NOT the main focus of the press, or shouldn’t be in any part of a newspaper other than the editorial section. In fact, the press is supposed to be that unbiased source of information in our society, which makes the obvious presence of agenda setting in this situation, and in many others, all the more aggravating and hypocritical.

   Blogging was destined to be used in promotional ways by any smart and innovative company worth its salt, and the fact that any criticisms about transparency and credibility are coming from the so commonly partisan press these days, well there’s your news story.