New regulations require soldiers to clear content of blogs and e-mails with a superior officer, Wired said. The directive, issued April 19, could lead to the end of military blogs — known within the military culture as ‘miliblogs’ — observers told Wired.

Military officials have wrestled for years with striking a balance between the need for discretion in wartime and the benefits of allowing troops in the field to connect personally with the public, the magazine said — especially since the troops are often seen as among the most effective advocates for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I understand that some of the information coming out of the war is extremely sensitive, and the military needs to ensure confidential information isn’t accidentally distributed. In the real world, though, the majority of superior officers will simply not have the time to go through each and every blog post for approval, and blogging will shrivel up. It’s a shame, because most milbloggers strongly believe in their mission and are able to articulate their hopes and successes. They’re a rare source of positive PR in the war.

I would have really liked to have seen the military adopt a blogging policy similar to some large companies (such as IBM) which outlines what you can and cannot say, what information is confidential, and so on, and possibly require milbloggers to simply alert their superior officers to their blog’s presence. They would have the best of both worlds in terms of accountability and freedom, and I’d still be able to look forward to stories from the front lines.

While I hemmed and hawed about posting a response, the far more qualified and eloquent Shel Holtz just nailed it, dropping knowledge on why the press release “still matters” and why the “new media release” makes sense. It’s a long post, but all of it is crucial reading.

UPDATE: For a little background, Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications has been tracking the “Stowe Meme” with a customized del.icio.us page.

Is it true?

We can be relatively certain users and submitters are gaming the Digg system to make money and get publicity. Services like User/Submitter actually pay users $.50 to Digg three stories, and submitters can pay a flat fee of $20 plus $1 per desired Digg. This becomes an attractive proposition when you consider an investment of a few hundred dollars could rocket your story to Digg’s front page and result in significant exposure.

Fortunately, Digg allows users to "bury" stories that are inaccurate or uninteresting. The sheer number of Digg users, numbering in the hundreds of thousands (just under 500,000 in August 2006, undoubtedly many more now) still offers a great degree of democratic control of what stories make it to the front page, thus garnering the most views.

Since we know, at the very least, there are services that exist to pay users to Digg stories, isn’t this just another form of Astroturfing? I think it’s extremely unethical to pay users to promote stories, but I run into a gray area when it comes to PR firms promoting clients’ products or services by adding them to Digg. On one hand, it is being paid to submit a story to Digg, but on the other, it’s relying on the Digg userbase to promote or bury the story as they see fit. As long as one isn’t paying the users, how is it different from sending a press release to a reporter? I get paid for that, and it’s simply part of my job – However, if I promised gifts or money to a reporter to ensure the story ran, it would be a tremendous breach of ethics for both myself and the reporter in question.

Ultimately, these are the dilemmas we will continue to run into as media becomes more democratized and "social." What do you think? Is it ethical for PR firms to submit stories to Digg and other social media sites on behalf of clients?

When Michael Ian Black came on stage, he started riffing on public relations, even namedropping Marshall McLuhan and his famous saying, "The Medium is the Message." He also expressed his belief that the Nazis lost World War II because they had "bad PR," and from there his routine quickly delved into material inappropriate for this blog.

Somewhat ironically, a few months ago my girlfriend and I were asked if we knew who coined the saying "The Medium is the Message." While we were familiar with the quote, neither of us knew to credit McLuhan. Since that day we’ve noticed this saying and McLuhan’s name repeatedly popping up in the strangest places. I guess I never realized how well-known it was outisde of college communication classes.