Before you start screaming at me, hear me out:

Last night I was watching Bill O’Reilly talk about a segment he had
Done earlier in the week where he implied that he attacked Congressman
Barney Frank. It sounded like a classic, over-the-top O’Reilly blitz.

Unfortunately, I missed it. But the more Bill and his guests talked
About the Frank ambush, the more I wanted to see it. Bill can be good
theater.

Fortunately, the Internet stores a record of just about everything.
So I Googled O’Reilly vs. Frank, and seconds later I was watching a video
of the verbal brawl. Surprisingly, Frank held his own, slamming Bill with
as much venom as O’Reilly was tossing at Barney.

Now assume I was PR counsel for either man. and that I wanted to
build a case that my guy was smarter, tougher or more adept at TV combat
than the other. I could go to the Web, as I did, extract the evidence,
present it in the way I believe it played out on TV and support my pitch in
living color.

We all think of the Internet as this futuristic wonder that has
Somehow arrived on our planet and changed our lives. And it has, but its
great value is as a creature of the past. Virtually everything of importance or
complete irrelevance to the world at large, is collected in and trapped by the
Internet. Forever.

It’s interesting and paradoxical that as much as we think of the
Internet as the cutting edge, there is something so old fashioned and timeless
about it. Anything we work on today as PR professionals, can benefit from an
info check on the Web. Want to write a pitch about Biden or Palin’s
chances of making a difference as VP’s, study profiles of their predecessors
on any of thousands of history sites, psychology sites, their own Wikipedia
pages. It goes on and on.

When I was writing my new book, Rich Is A Religion, I discovered in
The course of my work that the Puritans had a fully developed
philosophy about the management of personal finance. One that would have saved us from the current financial crisis.

I knew nothing of this when I started writing the book. The
Internet led me there. Engaged in research on the childhood of my former client, Treasury Secretary Bill Simon, I picked up on a path of knowledge that led from 20th century America to 17th century England.

It continues to strike me just how interwoven digital and traditional PR are today. Two sides of the same coin. The past and the present. Both reinforcing each other.