I wholeheartedly agree that Paul Graham's site is worth to check out. If you want to read the writings of an intelligent and critical man, then read his writings. I especially recommend the "great hackers" essay where he talks about how to handle smart people. Also "beating the averages" describes how they beat everybody else in creating their web software.

Vilmos

A lot of professions attract better writers than journalism. With blogs, you can read those people instead of the professional hack journalists.

Credibility in bloggers, especially political bloggers, is built on a foundation of integrity and transparency. On a willingness to advance an informed opinion, entertain immediate criticism and countering opinions, then immediately change one's mind based on that new information.

And this fact also points to why the MSM is in trouble. Their foundation has been built on gatekeeping, holding close to the vest, admitting error under duress, backpeddling, evasion, withholding the whole story...

...and now they are forced to be transparent. Poor, poor MSM. We're so sorry. Let's shed a tear for the MSM.

These comments fail to deal with the critical issue. PR people have managed to easily manipulate the MSM and will undoubtedly try to do the same with the blogs. How will the Blogosphere be any different, and what will bloggers do to avoid this temptation?

It's not just PR firms for companies either... its non-profit organizations putting out studies without providing raw data. The MSM simply republishes their press releases as fact. Drives me insane... especially since the motives of those groups are so transparent.

Terrific article, as is the one on the PR Association's website (that one is, yes, a bit amusing).

I do wonder how/if bloggers will deal with PR and other media agencies who will, eventually, catch on to blogging. Right now (I work at a big ad agency), they ignore it, thinking it is just a fun little fad. I don't think this mindset will last long, though, at least within smarter companies. At that point, they might start nosing around bloggers a little bit more in the hopes of advancing their...er... 'cause.'

About PR and blogging...

I think the article makes plain the author's opinion on how blogging will deal with it - by changing their writing style. It's plain that the author believes the driving force behind blogs is that the opinions expressed seem genuine rather than fake. "PR bloggers" will have to match that genuine feel in order to grab and maintain a decent readership.

Businesses, on the other hand, can bypass or supplement the PR companies by sending free samples to prominent bloggers, who then (hopefully honestly) blog about their experience.

See, e.g., Instapundit's posts about cameras, cars, razors, not to mention the books he's reviewing constantly. If his readership tries the products he recommends and finds them lacking, their level of trust goes down and his usefulness as a direct-advertiser would fall-off, and he'd find himself with less free stuff in the mail. If his recommendations are exceptionally good, he builds up more trust, which should increase readership and reader response to his future recommendations (increasing the likelihood that he'd get more free stuff from people who want him to spread the word).

Even if he doesn't get much free stuff, he does maintain and grow his readership and reputation - both non-monetary perks in their own right as well as revenue-increasing measures by increasing the value of advertising on his site.

Other bloggers who buy on Glenn's recommendation can comment as well, giving a further boost to a good product or further hurting Glenn's rep by spreading the word if he makes a bad recommendation. The whole system reinforces honesty in a lot of ways.

Glenn (among others), I think, understands this pretty well.

Trying to predict where the Old Media will go in the face of the Blogging onslaught is going to be very difficult. The signs of change are all around, but the forces that are causing all of the changes are diverse.

The Old Media is almost entirely a commercial enterprise. Historically it has lived or died under the rules of the market. All of the things about the market, good or bad have been applicable to the Old Media, including the bad effects of practical monopolies or oligopolies. In most markets the most competitive that the Old Media could ever come was the oligopoly. This was true whether it was print media or airwaves.

On the airwaves, the myth about restricted radio spectrum led to not more than three operational networks. With the print media, the large costs of startup and initial operation means that there cannot be many newspapers in any area. Having a handle on the spigot of news and political commentary is not functionally different than Standard Oil holding a monopoly on oil at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Government laws broke up the Standard Oil monopoly, but because of First Amendment considerations that was not possible with the press. But the business considerations are all still there.

With the arrival of the Internet a whole new phenomena arrived. It is different than cable or satellite, because while those introduced some additional competition, they are still subject to market financial forces. They have to have a source of revenue from their product to keep writing.

The oft quoted frustrated outburst “Bloggers are just guys with a computer at home in their pajamas” carries with it something far more profound than the originator imagined.
While the outburst was meant as a slur, I think that subconsciously this press spokesman sensed what was different and dangerous to his profession. These Bloggers were not people whose income was dependent upon their writing. Generally they have another full time profession and Blog for the fun of it.

People have always done this, but never before had this kind of writing had the ability to reach literally the whole world and more critically, find each other. A whole bunch of little electrons firing off into the world, at some point in the last couple of years reached crucial mass. The monopoly that the Old Media had was broken. Not only was it broken, but the new competitors do not have to face market forces in order to continue. They compete in the same markets for fun and without regard to cost.

Now the Old Media is competing where the competition does not care how long it takes to research a topic or what it costs. It is as if Wal Mart suddenly had to compete with old world craftsmen who were giving away items on the Wal Mart lot. It would not take long to bring Wal Mart to its knees.

In large part I still think that the Old Media doesn’t get it at all. They still think that a Blog is some kind of magical thing. Newspapers announce with great fanfare that they are starting a Blog. It is like putting another different colored bowl of mashed potatoes on a buffet table that has recently been covered with gourmet offerings from the World’s Best Chefs, all of whom are preparing food for the table because they love to cook.

PR people are not likely to make much headway with most Bloggers. Imagine a PR guy trying to get a Chef to substitute margarine in his signature dish for the butter.

Be careful reading his essays, you might feel the uncontrollable urge to learn Lisp. Beware the parentheses!

Re: PR firms and Bloggers

In addition to the ratings type of feedback effect mentioned above, there is the critical distinction between _a_ blog and the blogsphere.

Any single blog may be "corrupted" by PR, or even started entirely for PR purposes, but the wonder of blogs is that they do not exist in isolation. It won't take long for a corrupted blog to die - or for its author to be laughed and ridiculed into non-existence (is that a word?).