Bruce Lowry of Novell told The Economist that he can imagine blogs "completely replacing press releases within 10 years." It's a bold thought; does it hold water?

No doubt, the Web has tranformed public relations and changed the nature of the press release. Releases now have to be written with the assumption that everyone will read them. So a company's messages must be consistent -- which, frankly, hasn't always been the case in the past.

For example, before the late 90s, I can point to many examples where CEOs spoke to their Wall Street investors (through news releases as well as conference calls) in a very different way than they spoke to employees and customers. A layoff, for example, is often a positive for a company's stock price, while it's obviously anything but positive for employees. And investors love to hear that a company's products are earning higher margins than those of the competition; but a customer might see or hear the same message and think, "I'm getting ripped off!"

The Internet era has had the effect of forcing companies to integrate their messages more tightly, so they're saying the same thing to everybody. This is a good thing. But is the next step to move away from press releases altogether and on to blogs?

I can't imagine it anytime soon. I think more and more companies will add blogs as a new channel of communication. Some early corporate-affiliated blogs, like those of Robert Scoble (Microsoft) and Jonathan Schwartz (Sun), are excellent; they have the frankness and intimacy that a good blog requires. But I'm afraid many corporations will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into this new arena. Most large corporations are accustomed to top-down leadership and tight control of messages, and blogging runs counter to this.

Time will tell. Whatever happens, I look forward to being part of it.

Someone e-mailed me this morning to ask if Dallas had any other blogs like mine. My blog has a particular focus on the evolving relationship between journalism and public relations, which I haven't seen elsewhere. But Dallas does have some nice blogs.

My favorite Dallas blogs are probably those of journalist Virginia Postrel (though I often disagree with her opinions) and D Magazine (though I'm not a fan of its sometimes gratuitous bashing of Belo, a great media company -- and my former employer.)

Speaking of Belo, I applaud Keven Ann Willey for launching a blog by the editorial page team at The Dallas Morning News. She wanted the public to see how the soup's made -- to see the real people and real debate that go into deciding what positions to take on various issues. As she put it:

The entries on the blog represent the individual views of board members, for example, not necessarily the board's collaborative view. But it's those individual views that are so important to shaping the collaborative view that you read on the editorial page of the newspaper each day.

Steve Rubel of the New York public relations firm CooperKatz is a leading evangelist for blogging in the PR world. He wrote yesterday about how the rising influence of blogs will enable companies to talk directly to their audiences without relying on traditional media. He also references an excellent article on this topic in the Toronto Globe and Mail.

One implication of the trend is that PR pros will need to become more like journalists in their ability to communicate to the public. Rubel recommends PR pros start blogging now, even if only on internal agency or corporate blogs, to get the experience they will need. He writes:

My feeling is that the best way to teach PR pros to think like journalists is to encourage them to become bloggers. I have learned more about journalism through one year of blogging than perhaps anything else over my entire career in this business.

It's not news to anyone that we are bombarded by media images today. Many parents, in particular, believe they are at the mercy of the shallow messages of popular entertainment and advertising, and that as a result, their children are increasingly worshipping at the altar of consumerism.

While the decline of religion and many other factors have been blamed for this phenomenon, two interesting documentaries, last year's The Corporation (which arrives on DVD this month) and an older PBS special, Affluenza, argue that the deregulation of markets and rise of giant corporate conglomerates over the past 25 years (under both Republican and Democratic administrations) have also played a role in our current media bombardment.

Both are worth watching, no matter where you stand on the political spectrum. Personally, they've helped me to reassess what I do for a living, why and for whom. They've also made me reexamine some of my views on public policy issues. It's always good to take stock now and then.

Beginning with the Armstrong Williams fiasco earlier this year, much attention has been given to the Bush Administration's alleged manipulation of the news media.

The controversy recently extended to the use of video news releases (VNRs) -- pre-packaged television news stories, generally created by PR firms, for use by broadcast media outlets. The Bush Administration has defended the practice, but many editorial pages, such as that of USA Today, have suggested that they are unethical and should be banned.

This is silly. There's a fundamental difference between a "payola" case like that of Armstrong Williams and the PR tactic of VNRs. Williams spoke directly to a large media audience, and by not acknowledging that he was paid for his endorsement of "No Child Left Behind," he betrayed his audience and his profession.

The VNR, on the other hand, is no different from any other press release. It is given to the news media, who can use it, alter it, or not use it as they see fit. I've sent out many of them in my career; some have gotten great pickup -- airing on dozens of television stations -- and some have never seen the light of day. It was up to the news judgment of the individual media outlet whether and how they used the release.

If you are interested in learning more about VNRs, one Dallas company that does a nice job with them is VNR-1. Here's one of their case studies.

So why all the hubbub over VNRs? Here's my five-cent analysis of the situation:

1. Large segments of the U.S. media are embarrassed by their coverage of the run-up to the Iraq conflict. They took what they were told about the existence of weapons of mass destruction at face value, rather than doing their own reporting. The famous mea culpa of The New York Times reflects the feelings on news desks nationwide. This has made segments of the media more sensitive to manipulation by the Bush Administration.

2. With the explosion of television news outlets, and particularly 24-hour cable channels, the demand for packaged video content has increased dramatically. As a result, the media standards for when, where and how VNRs are aired have relaxed considerably.

These are media industry issues, not PR industry issues. And because of the First Amendment, VNRs will never be banned.

Instead, television news directors should simply tell their staffs the following:

1. "If you don't think a VNR is newsworthy, don't air it."

2. "If the VNR is accurate and contains information that will benefit your viewers, do air it."

3. "If you want to use video or audio content from a VNR as raw material for creating a news story with an entirely different angle, you can do that, too. You control what goes out over the air, remember?"

Personally, when I make and distribute a VNR, I expect the media to think carefully about what information their audience should receive and in what context. That's their job. And, despite the recent controversy, the media generally does this very well.

For this reason, I don't send out VNRs willy-nilly. I only send them out when I believe the VNR is a real story; if the VNR is unprofessional or inaccurate, it typically won't get airtime, even in today's looser environment.

One nice thing about blogs is that they represent an actual dialogue between people, or in the case of corporate blogs, between companies and their customers. They are NOT advertising. Marketing and PR firms that don't get this will make fools of themselves. Want an example? Check this one out for Captain Morgan's Rum.

Are party girls -- and parties, for that matter -- really this dull? If so, kill me now...there's no point in going on with life.

PoweR Girls, a new MTV series that highlights Lizzie Grubman's New York PR agency, has been hotly criticized by the industry for its depiction of publicists as vapid babes more focused on dressing up for parties and meeting Paris Hilton than providing counsel to their clients. It plays to stereotypes that the industry has fought against for years, and as such has touched more than a few nerves.

Personally, I was OK with that part of the show. Guess what -- they call them stereotypes because people fit them. And PoweR Girls is extremely positive in its portrayal of the relationship between celebrity publicists and gossip columnists compared to, say, the dark classic Sweet Smell of Success.

So really, my only complaint is that the show is dull. Not much happens. In particular, the so-called exclusive celebrity parties these girls throw will make you want to stay home on Saturday night. And the show mostly depicts the girls as whiny rather than fun.

For those who are interested in watching a program with a more real-world (as opposed to "Real World") take on PR, Taking Care of Business on TLC is (or was) a nice show. It's on hiatus.

In any case, the PR industry needn't worry about PoweR Girls. The plug will be pulled soon enough. And if it's not...girls, could you hand me that velvet rope so I can sling it over the nearest tree branch? ;)

Orchards, compared to other places where trees grow, are distinguished by their orderliness. Orchards have no undergrowth. The trees are evenly spaced in rows and columns, and are of uniform purpose, bearing either fruit or nuts.

All of which would suggest that the word "orchard" may be the worst possible name for a blog that covers the news media and public relations. Not since the 19th century has the work of the news media been such a messy, politically charged topic, and never before has the public had access to so many sources of (often conflicting) information.

Public relations, for its part, is looked upon with more skepticism than ever -- not so much because the practice of PR has fundamentally changed, but because consumers increasingly have the tools and sophistication to look behind the curtain and see how the worlds of PR and media interact. They're finding out how the soup's made, and realizing that a lot of fingers are trying to get into the pot every day.

The public -- finally -- has come to understand that the newspaper that plops on the front porch each morning is not some pure, objective "truth" on stone tablets. It is an imperfect product created through imperfect processes, where often the loudest voice -- inside or outside the news organization -- gets disproportionate attention. The media has always been a "squeaky wheel gets the grease" business, and PR firms squeak for a living.

See, listen: SQUEAK, SQUEAK! It's what we do.

Personally, I'm glad the public is figuring out how all of this works. And so we get back to the name of this blog. Though the media world will never be orderly, Media Orchard attempts to cultivate fresh thinking about journalism and public relations at a time when the line between the two is increasingly blurred -- thereby creating a bit more order in how we THINK about these topics, at least.

I invite you to participate.