Perhaps it’s just a matter of perspective, but I think that both Tom Murphy [PR, blogs and death…] and Roland Tanglao [PR is dead and blogging killed it] fail to make the salient point: today’s media channels are massively fractionalized and PR must change to match the new environment.

Twenty years ago there were a handful of media channels. Control of just a few gave you control of your message. Today there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of relevant channels. Some will listen to you, some will misunderstand you, some will oppose you and many will simply ignore you. The challenge for PR lies in managing those channels to communicate their message.

Weblogs provide a non confrontational means of countering those who either misunderstand or oppose your message. Suppressing other viewpoints will create backlash. But weblogs allow you to engage those with opposing views. And if you cannot change their position, you can at least associate your message with theirs to insure that your voice is heard.