I am currently on the road trip from hell. Close to two weeks being away from home and my safe haven the firehouse. I’m attending to some business currently in Las Vegas and had the opportunity to have dinner with a well know Texas business analyst who is often quoted in the papers and appears occasionally on TV. He asked me as a PR person and fire blogger my take on the difference between a reporter and a blogger. While he is always ready to speak to traditional media to get his expertise on a business issue, financial bloggers worry him because their perceived bias could misinterpret what he is saying.

There continues to be a lot of debate about the difference between independent bloggers who maintain their own blogs and reporters. The Fire PIO is an independent blog so to speak, but as a member of a larger entity, FireEMSblogs.com, and indirectly Fire Rescue Magazine, I feel that I have a journalistic code of ethics that I must follow in my writing.

I, for one, firmly don’t believe that bloggers and reporters are synonymous. Bloggers who write on a specific topic are in many cases biased. Just check the hundreds of independent political blogs out there. By the way reporters are also becoming increasingly biased based on who they work for. Let’s remember that while both FOX News & CNN claim to be unbiased, one needs only to watch a political report for all of 5 minutes to see that they both clearly “skew” the facts to meet their objectives. It is very hard to find totally neutral and unbiased new reporting these days.

Although bloggers seem to be maturing over the last few years and are coming in line with more traditional journalistic standards there is still one big difference. A reporter has to be beholden to his maker (his editor and editorial board) while most independent bloggers are beholden only to their own conscience.

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Kind of a strange post today that takes us to a world of public relations we never see. Last month I had a meeting with some of my staff to figure out ways to make our press presentation packages look better. We have outstanding brochures and flyers, but were lacking in ways to present customized materials.

Both in the Department, and in my regular job, budgets continue to get crunched so there is not much latitude to be creative if it increases cost. The big brainstorm was to get a machine that allows us to do spiral binding of presentation folders.

I was recently reviewing some of the press packages that various PR and marketing firms were producing for the World Cup.

Many were mega bucks costly, pretentious and over the top, but certainly creative. I give you this link to a NIKE “Write the Future” campaign that they are doing in conjunction with the games. What would we do if we had million dollar budgets to produce just one press kit?

The press kit included hand carved crayons of soccer player.

As a bonus, if any of you can figure out what the “Write the Future’ commercial is all about I’ll give you a free subscription to FIRE RESCUE magazine.

HERE’S THE LINK:  http://www.notcot.com/archives/2010/06/wk-crayola-nike-write-the-futu.php

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During my quick trip to Las Vegas, I’m glad someone was on fire watch at The Fire PIO desk.  I want to thank Bill Carey at Fire EMS Blogs who does such fantastic work managing these blogs as well as well as websites for  FirefighterNation.com/ Fire Rescue Magazine /JEMS.connect/JEMS.com LawOfficerConnect/LawOfficer.com.

The first piece Bill brought to my attention was written by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post. It is about stressed newroom budgets and how reporters must multi task to get a story out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/07/AR2010030702506.html?sub=AR

The second piece is about a great public information partnership between the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department and Metro bus.

http://pgfdpio.blogspot.com/2010/03/pgfd-pepco-and-metro-partner-for-fire.html

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