I think all of us in the media industry have been watching the Michael Arrington controversy over at TechCrunch with great interest (long story short, many felt his launch of a massive venture fund, CrunchFund, conflicted with his role as editor, and now he is editor no longer). It has added fresh fodder for questions that have been we have all been debating for a long time: How has journalism changed in the digital age? Where is the line between a blog and news outlet? What standards, if any, should we be holding blogs to?
The question that strikes me as perhaps most interesting, however, is this: Are we ready to trust editorial content provided by companies with a clear vested interest? Many in the corporate communications world seem eager to answer “yes.” According to Shel Holtz, Cisco now has 30 journalists working for them, writing purportedly independent and objective articles about the networking industry. Even I am fond of invoking the clarion call, “every company is a media company,” heralding a new age where the creation of the type of useful journalistic content traditionally considered the realm of “the media” becomes a core part of effective public relations and corporate communications. But are people ready to consume that content? Is disclosure enough to mitigate bias, perceived or real (or, put another way, is transparency the new objectivity)? The answer the TechCrunch/CrunchFund case seems to have given us is, “not yet.”
How do we shift that to a “yes”?
In the aftermath of “Weinergate,” pundits were quick to question whether Twitter was any place for politicians and offer advice on managing social media. It was the standard bevy of responses to social media-triggered crises. The infamous Domino’s Pizza YouTube incident was met with reminders to have corporate policies in place and know how and where to respond. The Ketchum-Fedex tweet mishap came with the classic “think before you tweet” warning.
While I think all of this is good (and important) advice, I feel it is mostly in the “sorry I got caught” vein. That is to say, the focus appears not to be on the genesis of such issues, but on how it came to be exposed and propagated. And we are quick to issue a “social media fix” for a “social media problem.”
In the case of Anthony Weiner, the obvious reality is that he should never have been engaging in that sort of behavior in the first place, online or off. And when we look cases like the Domino’s and Ketchum-Fedex ones I’ve cited above, a critical question becomes clear: “How has the importance of employee and third-party ally (e.g. PR agency) buy-in changed in the world of social media?” The answer is, of course, that buy-in is now more important than ever and needs to be more deep-rooted than before. When employees and allies share the values and objectives of your organization, not only are they more likely to be on message, but they will also act more responsibly and thoughtfully when discussing relevant matters on social media. And this is yet another reason to be sure you find the right partners, in communications in particular, who genuinely care about your organization and feel like they’re in the same boat. If you’ve got the buy-in, you won’t have to worry so much about “getting caught.”
