Let’s take a trip down memory lane …

Early on in my career, I made it my business to seek advice from anyone above me in my organization who was willing to give me any insight.  My approach was to ask for a short meeting with any executive who was on his/her way out the door.  My thinking was that on the way out, there would be no need for them to censor their advice, so I’d get the best they had to offer.  And it worked.

One Executive Vice President at Hill and Knowlton told me I’d be better off going to the client side eventually, and that I should stay in the agency world for about another 3-5 years to get the proper skills before moving over.  Another told me to specialize, that the days of generalist PR were coming to an end, so I’d have to choose a specialty if I wanted to be valued.

Both of those, and many others, turned out to be fantastic advice.

But the above news item triggered a memory of another piece of advice I received during one of those “exit interviews.”

I was speaking to the person who – even until today – was the best media relations professional I ever encountered.  I won’t give you her name, but I will share her advice:

She said, “You have to devour as much media content as possible.  It will help you understand trends, to which you can connect your client stories.  It will help you become more creative.  It will help you understand what makes it into the magazines versus not.  And, don’t forget, you will see opportunities for your clients, if you understand what the reporters are looking for.  You can frame stories much better if you have a context of what the reporter has covered in the past.

Let me tell you … she was right.

It is mind-boggling how many times I have picked up a magazine and seen opportunities for my clients.  And it builds upon itself.  The more you look, the more you are sensitized to seeing those opportunities.

And so, in light of this CNN report, which showed that many people are relying on others for their news, I strongly suggest that we all work hard to be among those who devour media content, rather than expecting others to spoon-feed it to us.

So what do we do about this problem?

What do we do when our clients go crazy about a negative Blog post, but dismiss a positive one we’ve worked hard to secure because, after all, it is just a Blog?

What do we do when a Blog gets the facts wrong but doesn’t feel a professional obligation to correct them because, after all, it is just a Blog?

And finally, what do we do when a Blog posts something that then is one of the top ten results in a Google search, thereby potentially hurting the subject of the post?

The answer: We do nothing … and everything.

We do nothing means that this is a new media format and we have to deal with the fact that it plays by different rules (or no rules).  And when there are no rules, there is really nothing you can do to turn things in your favor consistently.

But we also must do everything.  We must do everything in our power to run our businesses and organizations properly and with super-high standards.

That means we must make sure our products work and our customers are served well.  It means we must run our organizations cleanly, and in a way that will not call into question the money we are spending on operating those organizations.

That means that the Israeli catch-phrase of “Yihiyeh B’seder” (“it will be alright”) must go out the window, because Blogs are making sure that it won’t be alright.

And, by all means, we all must understand that honesty, integrity and truth must now rule.  Because if there is one rule by which the Bloggers play, it is that lying will not be tolerated.

This is the world we live in.  In most ways, it is much more complex than the early days of my career, when there was no Internet, e-mail, email, cell phone nor Windows.

But in one very important way, our world is much simpler:

Take one bad step, and it costs you dearly in the blogosphere.  Do the right thing, and, well, our Blogger friends might still slam you … but at least you will be able to look in the mirror.

And if I can sum up the blogosphere simply, it would be just that.  It’s a mirror. For the world.  For industry.  And for each of us to gaze at and ask: Do we like what we see?

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