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We the Media

Written by: Andy Marken

Article Overview: Book Review -- Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People – Dan Gillmor; O’Reilly Press, 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472, 707.827.7000, www.oreilly.com; August 2004; 304 pages, hardcover; $24.95

We the Media

Some PR people may not know (or seemingly care) who Dan Gillmor is and for that matter you probably don’t read the San Jose Mercury News. But for those of us in Silicon Valley and the technology based industries the Merc and Dan are as important to read as The New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and industry specific publications (of course you read all of these right? Right!)

But very quickly Dan is the internationally known and syndicated technology columnist at the Merc. His weblog on Siliconvalley.com is must-read by thousands of people around the globe.

It is probably fitting that O’Reilly, an unconventional publisher, published his first book, We the Media. Dan is an unconventional journalist because he’s an admitted tech toy addict. O’Reilly is an unconventional publishing company because they put out real hands-on techie books by and for technology-savvy people. The two were made for each other.

If you’re a PR person in business, consumer or governmental PR you’ll probably read Dan’s book and say “great those **** reporters are finally getting what’s coming to them!” Be careful what you wish for…you may get it.

With camera cellphones, digital cameras, camcorders, Pocket PCs, PDAs, WiFi, on-line publications, personal blogs and use lists growing so rapidly keeping good and bad news “quiet” is becoming difficult, if not impossible. Customers, employees and lookie-lous can spread information and misinformation about your firm to the global community with just a few keystrokes.

In an entertaining, informative and very readable form We the Media explains how technology is changing the business of journalism and it is a business – big business. Dan gives some great examples of how one-to-many traditional journalism is rapidly being transformed to many-to-many media.

Perhaps we enjoyed (and identified) with Dan’s book because he challenges his profession to get real, get responsive and just plain get it if “his” people are going to survive in the years ahead. We believe the same challenge faces public relations where people continue to believe they can manage and control their “news.”

Big media is still important in shaping what the community thinks about your company, your proudcts and you. But Dan very insightfully discusses (and explains in words the technically challenged can understand) today’s new media, the state of information dissemination and technology and what is just over the horizon.

Today’s big media is running hard today to try to figure out how to protect their revenue stream. Content owners – the music industry and Hollywood – are lobbying aggressively to establish and enforce new laws to ensure their profits.

Dan starts with his familiar mantra: My readers know more than I do – and that’s an opportunity. That almost sounds like heresy and he is biting the hand that feeds him. But in a reality his bosses – Knight-Ridder publishing – has taken his observations seriously. The company is aggressively working to see how they can use the new technology to continue to be relevant – and profitable – in the new journalism.

Dan saves his sharpest criticism for governmental lawmakers and the copyright industries that are supporting them. These organizations and individuals are throwing millions of dollars and volumes of new laws to blur the lines between fair use and copying for personal use. Unfortunately the wheels of law-making and justice don’t keep pace with technology and new laws deal with old technology and old enforcement to the point that they are irrelevant to the current state but are still impacting people personally and financially.

Except for those PR people in these fields, Dan’s positions in this area is of less concern to us than some of his collected inputs and ideas that we as professionals need to reshape our goals, thinking and actions.

To their credit – or discredit depending upon your point of view – political strategists have made the greatest use of the new journalism tracking, influencing, injecting their “news,” and producing their own identified and unidentified weblogs and personal journalism efforts.

While you are sitting in important planning and strategy meetings there’s an excellent chance that the news is already being sent out to the global community, accurately or inaccurately. While management is asking when their good news is going to appear in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or their favorite business/trade journal so they can show their friends and shareholders; RSS-enabled online publications, weblogs and uselists are reporting and commenting on the information.

As a sidebar, just in case you aren’t familiar with RSS you should visit www.oreilly.com or do a search on the web for RSS. Basically it is a format for syndicated news and the content of news that helps you keep up with all your favorite weblogs by checking their RSS feeds and displaying new items from each of them.

Learn about it, get your head around it and use it because it is the source of the good news and bad news about your company, your management and your products. Here is where good news and bad news usually starts. Dan also points out why PR people should understand how to use RSS to distribute news rather than clogging up his email inbox. It’s a fantastic way to reach your target markets – customers, prospects, suppliers, employees.

The power shift has taken place and our “targets” have suddenly become active participants. If PR people don’t learn how the work in this new environment, how can they counsel, advise, assist management?

The traditional media will continue to exist and be important for PR people. But now there are so many new opportunities, challenges and pitfalls that if we don’t learn how to use the technology tools properly and responsibly we will become less relevant and important to the organizations and ideas we represent and promote.

If you aren’t actively listening to and participating with your constituents, perhaps you should. Dan and hundreds of other competent journalists are doing it to ensure that professional journalism remains relevant and alive. Public relations professionals can learn from their example.

Bloggers were recognized members of the press for the first time in the national conventions. The first images of falling parts from the Challenger disaster were first shown on the web. The detailed, personal and horrific accounts of 9.11 were explored on the web. The steps and missteps of the war in Iraq are recounted daily on the web. Terrorism, counter-terrorism and governmental “oversight” are discussed in-depth on the web. Microsoft’s misleading Mac to PC ad campaign was reported on the web. Intel’s processor “problems” were reported on the web. Customers of yours every day who like and dislike your products are “reporting” the good, the bad and the ugly every day on the web.

How do PR people “manage” and “control” the new media? How do we get out in front of this for our companies and our management?

You don’t! Get over it! Read We the Media and get a handle on how public relations has to function and be relevant in today’s business world!

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