Okay maybe DEAD is too strong a word for newspapers,,,let’s just say …when there is no brain function shouldn’t we decide to unplug the life support,,,or should we keep hoping they will come out of their coma…

I’m sure this same issue came up the day paper was used to replace clay tablets..

A tough call to make especially if a family member is involved..

To plug or unplug,,,that is the question…

Well, “Stanley,” that’s fine, but you might want to remind your readers what you do for a living in the real, as opposed to this fantasy, world: You’re head of PR (communications, you call it?) for a major media corporation. Press releases are your currency, no?

The point I was making – which I’d hope might go to your heart – is that sending out unsolicited press releases (we hipsters call that “spam” nowadays) is a waste of everyone’s time and money: especially clients’.

But you might also be interested in knowing that I’ve written that corporations have a new role in the new news ecosystem by providing source material that is a link, a search, and a click away. Companies can and should tell their stories and give their facts there and the more honest thing for a journalist to do is not to retype it but to link to it.

So if, say, I were writing a blog post about how TV networks are dying, I could link to your page saying the opposite and the reader can decide.

In your fantasy world, reporters and PR people may come together to make journalism, but not in mine. Those days of one-way messaging – by either hacks or flacks – are what is over.

Actually, I’m more concerned that reading is dying. I’ve always been a voracious reader…of anything; books, magazines, newspapers, cereal boxes, and now the internet. I see a lot of young people who are, basically, functionally illiterate….not stupid, just not developing the skills to decode and construct the written word. It cuts them off from any sort of understanding of the world, and probably from being able to land a decent job.

As a tech journalist, I totally agree with you that press releases are extremely important in that they are often the statement of record from companies on their products and activities.

I think that, amongst certain journalists and PR people, the press release has become a crutch that takes the place of real reporting on the writer’s part and real Q&A on the PR rep’s part. A good press release should be a starting point, not an end-in-itself.

Oh, and could someone — you know who you are — stop sending this tech journalist press releases about the Oak Ridge Boys?

Now, now, Jeff. You ought to be gratified that Bing devoted a whole blog topic to you (I know I was). Your readership will expand! New worlds will be opened to you! Even your breath will be fresher!

I hope at least the Sunday paper remains in printed form. I don’t mind reading the daily on the internet, but there’s nothing like kicking back in the laz-z-boy on Sunday with the paper . Please don’t take that away!

The relationship between the media and public relations is symbiotic at best and incestuous at its worst.

Having said that, no less a luminary than Keith Richards commenting about a roughly analagous situation, Jagger/Richards, summed up these relationships by reportedly
tossing out, “Mick, Darling, it’s bigger than the both of us!”

It’s worked for the Stones for over 45 years and for journalists, much longer.

The Beer Summit has already been done. I suggest pinots at 20 paces.

And Mike, I believe you’re absolutely correct. It’s the attention span thing.

Nice. Jeff apparently thinks journalists need company press releases, but only wants them on demand, not when the news happens, i. e., there is something to release.

How would the world have known about the change in Apple’s board today without a company PR guy? I doubt Jobs gave that quote to a reporter when he called and asked!

And how is Jeff’s idea of linking not one way? He gets to say what he wants and link to what ever he can find, but doesn’t actually want input from the subject that is relavent? Nice.

Hey, Jeff. I’ll act like a journalist and simply say that I stand by my story. And I really stand by the complete rudeness of the large and needy hoarde of hacks heedlessly degrading their fellow professionals with invidious designations.

As an editor, I wholeheartedly agree with what Jarvis seems to be saying: untargeted press releases are useless and annoying. But “untargeted” is the important distinction. Academics can theorize as much as they want, but those of us who are working in print and online journalism know that we can’t cover every story, and often a good PR person provides the missing piece of a story, giving access to key interviewees or just coming along at the right time. A bad PR person gets added to the junk mail list. Problem solved.

But are we really still talking about this? This topic has been covered to death, most prominently when Chris Anderson ranted about it in October 2007. Jeff, maybe you missed the press release.

Declaring things “dead” is a practice that has totally jumped the shark.

It’s possible that jumping the shark has jumped the shark.

I should also add that when it comes to public relations vehicles, 140 words on Tritter has now taken the place of a well-written press release as a vehicle for self-promotion and spin.

I was aiming for irony in mixing two dead metaphors, but was apparently wide of the mark.

That said, I still believe that newspapers are going to stay with us in one form or another.

It does give me great comfort that all of you scribes (regardless of subtle distinctions) rate lower in public regard than attorneys and politicians.

I’m not about to touch this one. Perhaps I’ll just stand here on the edge of the playground and watch the fight.

Not wide of the mark, Sail. I just get very cranky when journalists get all sanctimonious.

I am neither a journalist or PR professional, but I’m gonna have to side here with Bing. The thing about a press release is that it could catch the eye of someone who might not be otherwise interested enough to “link” up. Furthermore, the releases are usually well-written with proper grammar usages and often times interesting and sophisticated topics. Rare is it these days that I read a journalist’s piece that isn’t filled with errors, patchiness, irrelevant detail and opinion/slantedness. I am quite disappointed in today’s written word journalists and their failure to grasp the intelligent use of language and grammar. How often is slang now a part of a headline without the use of quotation marks or (sic)? PR pros, keep releasing your hearts out and journalists- step it up a notch because I’m sick of you guys insulting my intelligence.

What I love about these public squabbles between thought leaders is that you can see their real character and decide which, if any, fits with one’s own moral compass. In this case, Bing shows a classy point, coming from a guy that knows what it means to be successful in running an organization with many careers at stake.

Meanwhile Jarvis comes across as an arrogant jerk. Does Jarvis really think he is “outing” Bing by saying is a PR guy in sheep’s clothing? Readers of Bing’s blog know the story. Another interesting sign is the Jarvis Twitter account I was compelled to read – where he has tellingly chosen a photo of himself on TV as his profile picture, and where one of his many enlightening Tweets includes: “Well, Hillary finally got her revenge. North fucking Korea? No poontang in Pyongyang. But they do have Cuban cigars.” Stay classy, Jeff.

I think a major point is that “nobody benefits when the hacks attack the flacks” and vice versa. There’s a long history of tension between hacks and flacks, and it seems like technology evolution is not changing that tension.

If Bill Clinton can get the release of two American journalists from North Korea, perhaps he can help mediate peace among flacks and hacks.

Brilliant post. I really like it when losers like Jeff Jarvis are exposed for the fraudsters and bs artists they actually are. Bing, if what you write didn’t ring so true then why would Jarvis feel the need t attack you in the comments with such barely hidden aggression and passive aggressiveness. Keep up the good work!

This is an extremely rich topic.

I’ll start by taking issue with Jarvis – if he’s still monitoring this space – which is the idea that in the new media one-way is so 20th Century. Baloney. This is an example of the sort of hokum I see all around the Silicon Valley.

In the past couple of years I’ve been experimenting informally with the new supposed two-way information highway. Journalists post stories with their email addresses attached, as if they’re waiting for interaction. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If you send queries about unclear portions of their stories, submit ideas for deeper coverage and even point out mistakes, they don’t want to know. As JAy from H-town already knows, Jarvis’s post revealed his basic premise: That two-way to him means the freedom to shove more content down the pipe to you, but he doesn’t need to listen.

So I’ve tried to think about reasonable reasons why this should be the case. I recall hazily from my brief time as a cub reporter on a couple of L.A.’s dailies some decades prior and realize the journalist’s day is busy. If he’s fielding all day the sort of inane commentary one finds on the websites of the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, he can’t get his work done.

But real commentary on something that I know something about is still rejected, so there’s a more insidious possibility, which is that after a while the opinion class just don’t want to know. Having competed and scrambled to a position where they get to dispense to the rest of us, they don’t feel the need for fresh input. It’s the old joke that if it isn’t in The New York Times it can’t be news.

Now what the new social media tools allow is for lots of these journalists to have their 15 minutes of Warholian fame, and act as if they’re privileged enough not to care what others outside the cabal think.

So I used to worry about the demise of traditional newspapers. With the recent passing of Cronkite and Hewitt, I used to feel dismay that the people who are around who seem to retain a respect for the old ideal that journalism is a profession and that reporting the news is a high calling all seem to be North of 50. But I don’t worry anymore.

What really matters in a democracy is when we individually and collectively give up and allow the opinion class to tell us what’s news, what to think, what’s reasonable. If we do that then no amount of newspapering or other media is going to save us. But if we keep our own minds, then maybe a winnowing where 90% of the journalistic riff-raff gets weeded out won’t be such a bad thing.