In case anyone missed it, here’s a knife to the heart of the news business, delivered by Richard Edelman of the PR firm bearing his name.
“You’re not God anymore,†he tells a reporter.
Edelman explains:
“In a world where we don’t have a belief in a single source, you don’t have a Walter Cronkite anymore. P.R. is the discipline on the rise,…P.R. plays much better in a world that lacks trust. “It used to be I would schmooze you and I was your flack,†said Mr. Edelman, whose firm netted about $260 million in 2005. “Today, if we want to get a message into the public’s conversation, we just make a post on a blog. If The Wall Street Journal goes after a client, we don’t have to accept that anymore. Let’s post the documents we gave The Journal; let’s show the interviews the newspaper decided not to show.
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[...] Perhaps this is what PR maven Richard Edelman meant when he told a newspaper reporter: “You’re not God anymore.“*** [...]
[...] David Carr comes to the same conclusion I arrived at a while ago. (He, however, reported the story, whereas I was merely speculating.) [...]
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