Who needs 'dead tree' old media? Virtually everyone
A post sponsored by Wired magazine written by an unamed person, or persons, under the unauthorized, assumed identity of Steve Jobs, titled "Radically, transparentally stupid."
Topic? As described by Wired magazine's NOT Jobs:
Hilarious groveling letter from Rubel to "Mr. Louderback" and everyone at Ziff Davis, which owns PC Mag. It's really a must-read, if only because Rubel is one of these guys who's been going around saying how the mainstream media doesn't matter anymore, and how blogs are displacing all the big newspapers and magazines, blah blah blah ... but here he is taking one deep down the windpipe on behalf of his clients, who no doubt carved him a new one for pissing off PC Mag.
The concluding X rated paragraph underscores "Junior PR people, learn from this. You're seeing a master at work," Steve Rubel.
The purportedly "groveling" open Rubel letter in question is an apology to "any of the several hundred employees who work for Ziff Davis Media" for having said "I don’t read the hard copy of PC Magazine and my free subscription goes in the trash."
Why the need for an apology? PC Magazine Editor in Chief, Jim Louderback, threatened revenge, weighing "whether the magazine in response should blacklist all PR pitches" from tech clients of Edelman, Rubel's employer.
Rubel "learned a valuable lesson," he assures:
My opinions and habits do not reflect the broader populace, our agency or its clients. While there is a subset of people who are reading blogs more than they do traditional media, magazines are in fact thriving. Therefore, the audiences that magazines like yours reach are important to our clients and our agency.
Who needs old media, or, as the blogosphere prefers to "affectionately" say, "dead tree" media?
The "broader populace," which is, virtually, everyone.
PS: The first commenter on the open letter at Rubel's blog asked:
"Is your apology to C/Net next?," signed Jeremy Pepper
More on Wired Magazine's "reflections" on the PR industry: How Google SPIN trumps Microsoft PR
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