Computer forensics hit the media this week with the news that the recent memo, broken by CBS's 60 Minutes, about Bush's National Guard service is now being questioned as a fraud.
Computer forensics are showing that this memo has a low probability of being written in the timeframe claimed, because of a number of elements in the type shown in the document.
But the key isn't the story itself, it's how the questions of fraud were generated and brought to the attention of the media - it was through blogs. A number of bloggers started questioning the authenticity of the documents once they were released, which then raised the story to national attention.
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Blogging has risen to the point where a single post in a well-read blog can then get echoed and built upon in literally hundreds of thousands of other blogs, until the noise level reaches a point where even the monolithic news organizations simply have to pay attention.
Blogs, which are basically pieces of software that allow anyone to easily and immediately post items to a website, are becoming incredibly popular as ways to communicate stories to the world. Many companies are now using them profitably to build their business, communicate their point of view, and to attract additional traffic to their website.
Blogs are also becoming powerful tools in the PR arsenal, both through blogging on your own company's site and getting bloggers to write about you on theirs. I've had a great deal of success with this tactic and strongly encourage you to follow suit. For more information on how to use blogs to build your PR, see our Training Manual Blogging For Business: How To Build Your Business Using Blogs
Also, we saw a comment made by one of the political analysts reporting on Dick Cheney's speech during the Republican National Convention. He stated that (paraphrasing) "I received a couple of emails on this point..." during the speech.
Now, isn't that interesting? A network TV political analyst talking, literally seconds after the speech is completed, about how the emails he received during the speech influenced his thought process, which in turn, influenced the thoughts of millions of viewers.
In other words - here's a case of individuals getting their opinions reported on network TV because they made a compelling point in an email to a commentator.
The key principle to understand here is that news reporting is starting to become democratized with more and more people becoming reporters or at least having a hand to shape the reporting process.
While this has its good and bad points, it does create an opportunity for us - opening up chances to get our stories publicized that didn't exist in the past. Not only can we, as individuals, gain the attention of the media, but there are also many new sources that report on the news, giving us more potential reporting opportunities.
Watch for these signs and think about it. How can you use the democratization of the media to help build your PR presence?
Posted September 10, 2004
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