Blogs as a moral presence
A few days ago, I got an email from a reader outraged that I hadn’t commented on Harvard President Lawrence Summers’ discouraging remarks. I replied to her that I hadn’t had anything interesting to say and I don’t feel obligated to comment on every issue of note. From her point of view, because I’m paid (a little bit) by Harvard, my failure to blog was a failure of courage. (I eventually did blog about it, but my affiliation with Harvard is temporary and so far below Summers’ radar that it took 0.0 pounds of courage.)
Then Jay Rosen blogged about the silence of PR bloggers about Ketchum’s sliminess in the Armstrong Willilams affair. Jay points to an exception: The CEO of Edelman PR, Richard Edelman, blogged twice in no uncertain terms about Ketcham’s culpability. In the comments, Jay asks me if I think the existence of Richard’s blog altered the way he responded. Although I know Richard a little, I obviously can’t speak for him. Nevertheless, it seems to me that in cases like this — if it’s a PR scandal and you head a PR agency, or it’s a Harvard scandal and you work at Harvard — if you have a blog, not addressing the issue is itself a presumptive moral statement. Of course it’s not clear how to take that statement: Maybe you had nothing to say, maybe you’re on a plane, maybe you just don’t feel like it, maybe you’re feeling too confused or too sick at heart. Even so, the blank blog is staring back at you.
Blogs call forth moral presence.
[To disclose yet again: I’ve started consulting to Edelman PR but had nothing to do with Richard’s blogging about Ketchum. I wish that I did.]
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Thanks for answering my question. I think in this case an additional benefit of the blog might be it puts you on the record, closing off certain possibilities while adding to others.
Sorry David, she was not asking you to take a stand. She was asking you to take her stand.
Do you know how ridiculous the Harvard thing looks? If Mr. Harvard President had hypothesized that women have better senses of color coordination because a much higher percentage of men are born with partialor full color blindness and that there are genetic factors in that and on a continuum of color perception ability, women are gentically better at it, everyone would have gone home and put in Season 1 of Queer Eye and been happy.
David Weinberger: Blogs as a moral presence
David Weinberger talks about: Blogs as a moral presence. Short post. Please read if you have the time. It raises an interesting question, which is this: At what point are we required to speak out? In other words, if I
Two quick points:
1. Edelman got itself tangled up in the Microsoft “astroturfing” broohaha back when MS was fighting with the Justice Dept. In fact, some might even track the origin of the word to this incident. For Mr. Edelman to take such a stand without fully exploring his own disclosure issues isn’t honest.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980421S0018
2. So if you have problems with Ketchum’s position, why don’t you have issues working for Edelman?
Agree with Brian. And I blogged on Ketchum despite insinuations around the blogworld that PR folk (and I’m an ex Ketchum person) didn’t blog it. It is just a little (tongue in cheek) more risky for me to blog about it than Richard Edelman. Sheesh. Invite ants to the picnic why don’t you.
The entire issue is larger than Ketchum and it is one I expect the Pros of Marketing and PR to explore, even if outside of this “issue of the moment.”
The larger issue is the undeniably antiquated business model of BigPR and why it can’t work in this market by playing straight.
To survive in the dynamic environment inspired by the Internet, BigPR’s culture, tools, and processes must be dramatically remade. Too many agencies lack the flexibility to get out of their own way, let alone rethink their business.