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December 03, 2005
PR spinmeisters
Jim Grisanzio and some of the commenters on his blog assumed my quote for the corporate evangelists story in U.S. News & World Report about keeping "PR spinmeisters" away from company blogs and podcsts meant all PR people.
Nope, wrong assumption.
By that, I meant the PR people who practice obfuscation, distortion or the blurring of reality in the name of organizational dogma, like what's happening in Washington right now with the PR company that's helping the U.S. military with payola ("Military Admits Planting News in Iraq").
Other blogs that reference PR spinmeisters:
I'm not assuming anything, actually. I've simply observed the statement in US News, and I disagree with it, that's all. Qualifying it here, asserting that an incorrect assumption has been made, and linking a certain extreme segment of the PR community to an unrelated and extreme example from Iraq doesn't change my position at all.
I appreciate the response, but you write on your post: "To ban the PR department from blogs -- as suggested by the quotes above -- misses the point entirely."
"Banning the PR department" is not what I suggest... since the quote was referencing what Walmart could do to create customer evangelists, my suggestion was to get company executives or department blogging or podcasting. Having PR people "craft" that work on behalf of the execs is not a good idea.
That said, I would love to see a blog from any Walmart official, PR or otherwise.
