Direct Access, The Hybrid Between Journalism and PR

When a company starts a blog, that business takes on inherent risks. In the case of GM's Fast Lane blog, was meant to replace coverage lost when GM pulled advertising from the LA Times. The reason? Because, there was no specific reason but Lutz (a GM executive) criticized the media for unbalanced and inaccurate reporting.

Blogs according to Lutz are great because they "can be...an equalizing factor." Basically what he is saying is that a blog can allow a company to control what types of information flows in an out of the company.

And if you think about it, he's absolutely right. Blogs can potentially compete with newspapers due to the fact that they can release information faster than any reporter. So in a sense you have the corporate blog, defeating the slightly out of control but nonetheless important watchdog and companies can instead use their blogs as a sort of hybrid of press PR and press coverage. And if the company pulls away money from advertising or PR (strangely enough PR is a huge part of getting press coverage), then it's a win for the company and a loss for the newsmedia.