New Zealand business weekly newspaper, The Independent, has today quoted Bullet PR Managing Director Nicholas O’Flaherty in an article by Melanie Cooper, discussing the alleged blurring of journalism and public relations.

O’Flaherty argues that “the lines between PR and Journalism have not blurred any more than they were 10 or 15 years ago.  Rather, what you are seeing today is mainstream media organisations such as Fairfax and APN increasingly experimenting with social media, for example: voting online, ‘send us your views’ etc. It’s all about engaging online readership.

“The role of a traditional print newspaper is therefore changing as its evolves into an online entity. Today there are parts of stuff.co.nz and nzherald.co.nz that look increasingly like the online equivalent of talk back radio.”