Bloggers, journalists, and PR confusion
August 28th, 2007 by Benjamin KuoThere’s been an ongoing debate both on and off the net, on whether bloggers are journalists. Given the debate about how to classify the blog world, I read with interest this recent post by a venture capitalist, Rick Segal, complaining about a pitch he received from a Silicon Valley PR firm. Rick complains that the PR firm offered to have their CEO talk with him about their company; and didn’t realize that his firm has an investment in a direct competitor.
It’s an interesting problem–and one which apparently has some PR firms confused–which is determining which bloggers are providing unbiased opinions, and which ones are simply shilling for companies which they have invested in, which they are running, or who are posting because someone paid them to.
