Friday, August 21, 2009

Corporate Blogger, Or Corporate Espionage?

Courtesy Of Wired Blog NetWork

800px-jeffrey_veen_on_bloggerDefense contractors, just like their counterparts in the Pentagon, are trying to get their hands around this whole social media thing. Most corporate flacks are smart enough to realize that you can’t get away with simply posting press releases or talking points from the CEO in blog form, but they are still struggling to harness the power of web 2.0

Defense giant Boeing is one of those firms that was toying with the idea of a company-backed blog. But the experiment may be stillborn, thanks to a company spokesman who may have taken a bit too enthusiastically to the concept.

Defense Daily (subscription only) has the whole story. It centers around Doug Cantwell, a Boeing spokesman who attended a recent industry symposium as an “independent blogger.” By passing himself off as a blogger — and not as a Boeing employee — Cantwell stirred up a controversy that could have serious implications for both companies that want to experiment with social media — and for reporters who work in the new medium.

By not identifying himself as a Boeing employee, Cantwell violated company policy. But here’s the real kicker: Cantwell was accredited as a blogger with Defensedialogue.com, a domain name owned by Boeing. It’s an open secret in the defense trade press that Defensedialogue.com is the brainchild of Stanley Holmes, a former writer for Business Week who once covered Boeing as a Seattle-based correspondent — and who now works as a corporate communicator for Boeing. Neither Holmes nor Cantwell provided comment to Defense Daily on the story; Dan Beck, a Boeing a spokesman, said an investigation was underway. But as Defense Daily’s John Robinson and Geoff Fine write: “Although Beck declined to delve into details of the investigation, one issue likely being explored is whether Cantwell acted as a ‘rogue operator’ or was simply following orders from higher-ups at Defensedialogue.com to generate material for the effort, which had tentatively planned to launch this fall.”

As the DEW Line’s Steve Trimble notes, the incident may force Boeing — a company that, in the past, had its share of ethics scandals — to retreat from the blogging world altogether.

“Alas, Defense Daily’s fine reporting likely means we will never see Defensedialogue.com, or any external blog published by Boeing’s defense division,” he writes. “Boeing IDS [Integrated Defense Systems] has always supported my use of social media technology, but has seemed skittish even among defense contractors about using such tools corporately. For example, Boeing was the only major US defense company at the Paris Air Show that did not post updates on Twitter.”

I see something of a different problem. It’s hard enough working as a reporter for a non-traditional news outlet. Securing accreditation, getting visas, convincing officials to grant access or interviews – all the things you need to do your job — will be much harder when you have to persuade someone that, yes, your blog is a legitimate, independent news outlet and no, you’re not masquerading as a reporter for the purposes of collecting intel, corporate or otherwise. Corporate blogging passed off as independent newsgathering does not advance the cause of new media.

And it’s particularly troubling when traditional journalism jobs — particularly in newspapers — are rapidly disappearing. A venture like Defensedialogue.com, it seems, opens the door to more cynical operators who are willing to blur the lines between journalism and other lines of business.

[PHOTO: Wikimedia]

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