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Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Shameless self promotion: I’ll be on CNBC tomorrow

I’ve been invited to answer some questions about the Wal-Mart blogger relations program tomorrow on CNBC’s Squawkbox segment at 6:45 a.m. EST. (In case you’re wondering, that’s 3:45 a.m. PST. Yep, I’m getting up at 1:15 a.m. so I can be at the KPIX studio in Oakland for the interview and still make my 6:30 a.m. flight to Oregon for a client meeting. I expect by tomorrow night, I will be—as Neville would say—thoroughly knackered.)

Should be interesting. I’ve been interviews by a few local TV news outfits when in town for a speaking engagement, and I’ve certainly handled several interviews like this for executives at companies where I worked in communications. But this is the first time I’ve been invited to speak as a professional on a cable news show.

After getting the invite, I did a lot of reading on the issue, both mainstream media and blog. Ultimately, I have to shrug and wonder what the big deal is. Edelman PR, on behalf of Wal-Mart, simply engaged in a blogger relations effort. They never paid anybody, nor did they insist that all items be run. Personally, as a blogger I would have disclosed where my information came from, although I don’t believe there’s any compelling ethical reason for other bloggers to do so. Had I handled the account, I might have suggested to the bloggers I contacted that disclosure would be a good idea, but again, I don’t think this is a requirement. After all, how many press releases go out with a disclaimer urging news outlets to disclose the source of the news they report? God only knows how many trade publications published press releases I wrote without changing a word but never referenced the fact that their source was a press release!

But controversy sells newspapers and some people at newspapers like the New York Times—which turned this non-story into an issue—may still perceive bloggers as a threat.

Anyway, I’ll be sorting out my thinking between now and 3:45 a.m. tomorrow—which, of course, assumes I’ll be able to think at all at 3:45 a.m.!

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Posted by Shel on 03/07 at 01:24 PM
Blogging • (6) Comments • (1) Trackbacks • Permalink
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