I write this blog on digital PR, and that’s fine, but the problem is it makes many people think there are two distinct silos: traditional PR and this new digital thing.

But in reality, they are not bifurcated. They are seamless. They are mix and match. One morphs into the other and then back again in a moment’s notice.

Actually without notice. Really, in a nano second. That’s the challenge of it. That’s the fun of it.

What do I mean? Let’s say you land a Wal-Mart executive on CNBC to talk about the company’s successful forays into key global markets. The interview goes great, your client comes across as sage and sincere and the producer tosses out the idea of doing a one hour special on the company’s extraordinary history.

Wonderful. But even as the interview is live on the cable, the wonderful turns partly terrible. A network of anti Wal-Mart bloggers - and there are legions of them who hate anything American, capitalistic and successful - go into a viral frenzy about the company.” Wal-Mart starves children. Wal-Mart destroys unions. Wal-Mart killed Lincoln.”

Even though the traditional media can be biased, it does have an editing process. It does have a fact checking process. And most of its reporters and editors work hard to pass through the screen of impartiality. But the blogosphere is filled with renegades, many of them angry at this, that or the other thing, and free to say, rant, scream about whatever they (we) want, whenever we want to.

So here’s the crazy quilt aspect of all of this. You land a great segment on CNBC and then the bloggers turn it against you. When you and your client go on air you have to be factual; the bloggers don’t have to be anything but alive.

So if you think traditional PR and digital PR have walls between them and if you think you can leave digital PR to the punky kid in the office next door, sorry. The world isn’t neatly packaged like that anymore. Not since the day the walls came down.

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I have to admit I did something a bit sketchy recently (for the first time, I swear….well maybe the second).

I met a woman at a party and the small talk turned to vocations and I (what a cliché) asked her what she does for a living.

Woman At The Party: I’m in PR.

MS: PR? (of course, I knew what she meant).

Woman: Public Relations.

MS: I have heard that term a hundred times but never really know what it means (I told you I was being sketchy, but hey, I have a blog to write).

Woman: Well, to make it simple (this is where she wanted to call me Rain Man), I place my clients’ stories in the media.

MS: stories? The media? Do you mean you spread viral messages on Facebook?

Woman: I have heard of Face Book, but what is it?

MS: It’s THE media.

Ok, so here’s the problem.

Well, I will leave the conversation now. Instead, I will tell you a brief story. A few weeks ago, USA Today ran a story about an issue I have had with the billboard ad giant Clear Channel. A big story. It was a PR dream. But in what would be a surprise to my party lady, the real dream occurred online. On http://www.usatoday.com/. That’s where a national debate ensued about the story. Where people left their real names. Where the passion lived. And the business opportunity thrived.

So, Murdoch is taking over the Wall Street Journal. And he promises he won’t change it. But he has to and he knows it and the family who used to own it knows it. Because it is yesterday’s fish. Dead and smelly and not edible. People cry about change–that it won’t be the same. That’s the point. People always say they don’t want to change, but in the end are better off for it. Civil rights in America, making Hawaii a state and yes, even changing the size of the WSJ –all were bemoaned at the outset, but made better by those changes in the end.

So party ladies and gentlemen, PR pros all, we have to know, we have to admit, what the people read. And what they will read tomorrow. And that’s the essence of digpr. Actually, soon, now, of PR.

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