« If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Join ‘em | Main | Who Reads Blog? Apparently, “Almost No One” »
When Blogs Get Out Front of a Story
By Mark Evans | February 26, 2007
I try not to cross-promote my blogs but will make an exception about a story that appeared on my Nortel blog last week because it illustrates how blogs can get ahead of the media and a corporate PR team.
Last Thursday, I saw a Google Alert about a Nortel executive, Joel Hackney, who admitted to being guilty of assault on a female, false imprisonment and communicating threats after a road rage incident in a parking lot following a basketball game in North Carolina. Initially, I wasn’t sure whether to blog about it because although it involved a Nortel executive, it wasn’t really related to Nortel’s business. But it did involve a senior executive who is a member of the company’s new and improved management team so it seemed newsworthy. (and the story had been picked up by a North Carolina newspaper. the News Observer). So, I wrote a post asking whether Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski should keep Hackney.
The number of page views (more than 10,000) and comments (80 and counting) have blown away any blog post I’ve ever written. How come? For one, it is a bizarre story featuring an executive who works for a high-profile company with more than 25,000 employees but I think the real reason is there’s an information void. Other than a handful of local outlets covering the story, there has been no media coverage, including none in Canada where Nortel has its headquarters. Meanwhile, Nortel has been silent.
With little information available, many people have turned to my blog as a way to find out what’s happening and what other people are thinking, including many Nortel employees. The most striking comment was a person who said: “One of the more depressing aspects of this affair is Nortel employees having to communicate with each other through an external blog like this, in full gaze of the world.”
For someone who spent a long time as a business reporter, including five years covering Nortel, this “story” is interesting because it’s another example of how blogs are increasingly becoming places where people get their information. I will be curious to see whether the mainstream media picks up on it, and whether Nortel issues a public response.
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Nortel