I took in Fox’s News Watch Thanksgiving weekend and the subject was blogs. The subject: Are they important, if so why, how do they influence the media and ya da ya da ya da.

This is usually a well-produced and informative program on the inner workings, biases, power and lack of it in the media. But in this case, it was like listening in on a group of bewildered time travelers wondering why and how the good old horse was replaced by the automobile.

But let me back up for a moment. There are two kinds of blogs. Actually, I take that back but I’m too lazy to delete it and start all over again. There are three kinds of blogs:

1. The 70 million or more no one reads except for the writer and extremely lonely and devoted friends. Although these are technically blogs, they are really personal diaries about sex, acne, and the challenges of motherhood. For PR professionals, zero value. Push the delete button.

2. The few hundred thousand or so that have a real following. Think of them as mini Daily Oregonians with passion. The ones that cover your clients’ interests are important to PR people and should be pitched based on a sound knowledge of who they are and what they write.

3. The 800 pound gorillas, like The Drudge Report and The Huffington Post. These beasts are powerful, influential and viral. Pound for pound they are MORE important than any traditional media outlet. PR pros must learn them and find out how to break into them.

The Fox News Watch talked about-incoherently, but talked about nevertheless-blogs, as if everything posted as a blog really is one. You have to dismiss the diaries, dance with the real ones and romance the hell out of the divas.

Now, the show also postulated that traditional media makes the blogs stars and also really influences opinion and the course of events. One of the guests postulated that Dan Rather would drive a hapless blogger to stardom and then Dan would be the one changing history.

It is really the other way around. No one does or thinks in any special way because Katie Couric suggests it. But when Drudge or Huffington take a stand, millions go with them. With fierce determination. With a near unstoppable force.

Fox News Watch didn’t have a PR pro on the panel. Just traditional media journalists. They can afford to live in the past.

We can’t. And it’s more fun here too.

Why do I write a blog for this publication? Why do I write one for Brandweek.com?

Both a highly-respected publications written by seasoned professionals. Why did they ask me to write blogs for them? I don’t work for them. I am a free agent. I can write whatever I want to write and have not an iota of fear about being fired.

Asking me, and other bloggers, to voice our opinions in their space, that takes guts. And these are brands with guts. And even more so, this is what the digital world, in its purest form, is all about. Guts. The free exchange of information. Outlaws writing on Berlin walls in properties others own. Not as hackers but as invited guests.

Whenever I have guested in traditional media, there were 10,000 questions, a Kafkaesque due diligence to make certain I embarrassed no one. In the digital world, just the opposite. “Will you write a blog for us, Mark?”

“Would love to.”

“Go for it.”

It is that simple for brands with guts, brands that understand the digital world, because if it is about control and limitations, it is not about cyberspace. All of the good behavior rules of traditional PR need to be re-examined when it comes to digital PR. Because caution doesn’t work here. It is actually against the rules of the game.

The big mistake is to think that the transition from traditional media to digital is all about the alphabet vs. binary code. It has almost nothing to do with the function and virtually everything to with form. You need to read the language of the Web. To visit a zillion sites. To witness the abandon that runs through this world where in seconds science can pop up to politics and politics to food and food to sex.

The beauty of digital PR is that its “rules” have not been written yet. You can write them. And then relish in the fact that they will change the day after.

The more you can accept this, the more you can accept a blank slate, the more you will succeed.

There are no experts in digital PR. We are all Magellan circumnavigating the world. Enjoy the ride. And make a mark on the world.

The spin about the Internet is that it is the most democratic form of communication. You can say whatever moves you on any and every subject and presto it’s there for the world to read. Like it or not.

In this brave new world, legend has it, there are no censors.

Lovely concept. Total myth.

One of our client’s businesses is focused almost exclusively on the Internet. The company creates intellectual property, which is targeted at a specific community, and uses all manner of PR to drive traffic to its site and its offerings. When people see what they like, they buy on line. Direct, precise, and straightforward.

One of the ways the firm gets its message out is by writing a blog on web sites frequented by its core demographics. The sites agree to carry the CEO’s blog and in the process of informing and entertaining his audience, he builds his universe of prospective customers.

He is an outspoken and provocative guy, and that’s what the market wants and expects of his blog.

And then this theory turns to reality and a reader who disagrees with one or all of the blogs makes a holy stink and threatens to bring the wrath of hell down on the website that hosts it and the democracy of the Internet turns into a dictatorship. Fearing all manner of retribution (none of which is valid), the host site asks the blogger to censure his work or his blog will be dropped.

What to do? As PR professionals, cave in to the threat to keep the placement or insist that your client’s voice be an honest one or none at all?

I am facing a similar issue. With my new book about God and business coming out in January, most business and religious sites are embracing it and asking for stories on it, review copies and the like. But a few are concerned that it will upset some of their readers who have hardened opinions and refuse to allow new thinking into their worlds. They have decided to assume the role of censures even before any of their community has a chance to read what I have to say and voice an opinion of their own.

As PR professionals, you know where your clients’ messages are likely to resonate and where they will initiate a healthy and passionate debate. Most of the universities Ann Coulter speaks at detest her message but love the debate she generates. Fox News has no love for Hillary Clinton but would love to bag her for The Factor. It’s all part of the free for all that is the signature of an open and democratic society.

A wonderful free-for-all I am part of and embrace. A free-for-all I thought, until recently, was best exemplified on the Web.

Those naive days are over!