There’s another government flack blogging
2August 15, 2005 by Colin
I think it’s great that there’s a new blog dedicated to government PR staff and their problems (Deep Background), but I have two problems:
- it’s anonymous, and:
- it’s hosted on Ragan’s website.
I can understand the anonymity, but with the range of blogging options available to anyone, why host your site on a PR firm’s server?
As a government communicator, that strikes me as an ethically dubious move. As a blogger, it just doesn’t pass the smell test.
Oh – and the comments are filtered. Nice touch.
It might be an ethically dubious move for a pr firm host a government communicator’s
blog, but Ragan is not a pr firm. As their website says, Ragan is a “publisher of
corporate communications, public relations, and leadership development newsletters.”
So how does writing a Ragan blog differ from writing articles for their newsletters?
Regarding filtering, I need to keep the blog free of political commentary to steer
clear of Hatch Act violations. All other comments will get through.
db
Good pick up. Have just scanned it, but it looks like
it’ll provide some good insight.
I agree that the relationship with Ragan causes
suspicion. I’d prefer more independence. However, if
the person is really deep, maybe Ragan can hide
his/her ID better than blogger, etc.