Blogging a Replacement For Journalism and PR?

Recovering PR pro Shel Israel and my good friend, Microsoft super-blogger Robert Scoble, are co-writing a book via blog called The Red Couch. The book explains the why and how of blogging to business people. Bookmark their today's installment, I could not agree more. Cut out this passage out and stick it on your fridge. Send it to all your colleagues and plaster it on t-shirts, because it's 100% true... ""Blogging today has superior credibility, adheres to better rules of self-governance and reshapes how and why PR will be practiced if it is to survive. PR people cannot just treat blogging as another channel down which they will toss the same old crap. Their new role will be to teach company officials to speak for themselves, in a plain language and adhering to the rules that makes blogging a more credible communications channel. This creates a huge opportunity for the very best of PR practitioners. I think blogging is indeed part of a new PR that has only now just begun to form, but will take shape and offer value in the not too distant future--but blogging and PR practitioners need to approach each other with the same caution as two amorous porcupines." - Shel Israel, genius" Senior Vice President with Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.