According to CareerCast, the role of a PR executive is the fifth most stressful career path, up from seventh in 2012.

“Public relations executives are masters of damage control, thus need to be able to think and act quickly under stress,” said CareerCast. “The profession lives in the public eye, and it’s also one of the professions attracting the most college students, which makes landing and keeping a good job that much more difficult.”

The site reported that the median salary for PR pros is $57,550.

Conversely, University professor tops the CareerCast.com Jobs Rated report of least stressful careers for 2013. The field’s high growth opportunities, low health risks and substantial pay provide a low-stress environment that’s the envy of many career professionals.

I last wrote about Wikipedia in 2009 for PRBlogNews – What is your Wikipedia strategy? Since then, Wikipedia has loosened up a bit. There are now identifiable editors. You can request a review of your Wikipedia page, and there are more readily acceptable solutions to correcting a bad Wikipedia page.

Why bother?  Wikipedia often comes up top in search results. It is the 6th largest site on the Internet for web traffic. An inaccurate or skewed Wikipedia page can undermine years of PR effort.

What not to do.  As a PR professional, or a member of a company, you cannot edit a Wikipedia page in which you have a vested interest even if it is grossly inaccurate. You will be slammed by roving bands of Wikipedia editors and the damage will take a long time to undo. Witness the recent comical case of author Philip Roth’s tussle with Wikipedia in which it was determined initially by Wikipedia that Roth was not a credible source to set the record straight on his own book.

What to do. Hire Influence Consulting : ) We integrate a Wikipedia strategy into the earliest stages of a PR program. We identify authorized editors who can assure that a Wikipedia insert is accurate and up-to-date. We create a Newsroom that serves as an excellent PR and SEO channel, and a single source for Wikipedia editors to pull reliable, published news on a company or individual. – Mark Rose

More and more, we place less and less bottom line value in traditional PR tactics, and a much greater emphasis on content creation and distribution for lasting PR impact.

We create content through press releases, commentary, analysis, important organizational events, and third-party endorsement through publicity. Then it gets pushed out through a distribution channel = blog or News Room (the mother ship), various social media outlets, and packaged for marketing.

An ancillary benefit is that the content leads to media interest and publicity. The point is that the content created has lasting value directly to the client, compounding as a digital asset, whether or not “the media” picks it up. Now, more than ever, we are the media.

We can demonstrate lasting PR value with a simple strategic matrix: content creation + distribution = PR for lasting impact.

Think of original content the way a typical, top-level news organization does. A single story from a Dow Jones reporter can go to print, online,  through social channels, and become a video story. That content can go across Dow Jones properties – MarketWatch, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, et al. Reporters Tweet their stories, it runs through the LinkedIn network, on and on, and it lives in virtual perpetuity as a Dow Jones digital asset..

PR pros have access to virtually every digital distribution channel that Rupert Murdoch does (excluding print).

This is a thrilling time to be in PR. We have access to unprecedented news development and distribution capabilities. Most of these distribution channels are open source, free and are limited only by our imagination and willingness to devote time and attention. Publicity is still an important component of any PR program but it is best served by creating News that is delivered to target audiences, no filter, and also offered to the media. Increasingly, they will take credible content and re-publish through their vast channels.  PR is becoming a much more varied, fluid and creative business these days, much like the media whose coverage we covet. – Mark Rose

The Palestinians, of course, responded in kind, with their own spin on events disseminated through the social media sphere. It was like virtual missiles raining on an enemy who employed a defense shield and counter-attacks. In the end it was akin to Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), a suitable metaphor for the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So much social media bombardment cancels itself out and the noise becomes an annoyance, rather than a means of objective education. The story became the social media war, not the real war. I doubt that many opinions were changed due to the effort of the Twittering, blogging hordes.

The Israelis, believing that the world media is against them, see it otherwise.

“We’re removing the media middle men,” said Daniel Seaman, deputy director general of Israel’s Ministry of Public Diplomacy. “They used to say the Elders of Zion controlled the media. Well, here are the youngsters of Zion who are running it.” The Israeli military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a self-described Twitter addict, heads a two-month-old “Interactive Media” branch, staffed with around 30 soldiers trained in writing and graphic design.

If there is a winner in this war, purely from a communications standpoint, it is the Israelis. They capitalized on the digerati’s obsession with infographics (below), they produced a better looking blog (for what it’s worth) and they gathered more followers.

• @IDFSpokesperson Official Israel Defense Forces Twitter account with 200K+ followers
• Israel Defense Forces Blog
• @AlqassamBrigade Official Hamas Armed Wing Twitter account with 42K+ followers
• Al-Qassam Web site for Hamas

And now The Gothamist wonders whether this anonymous letter to The New York Times “The Ethicist” columnist in July was from Broadwell’s husband. 

My wife is having an affair with a government executive. His role is to manage a project whose progress is seen worldwide as a demonstration of American leadership. (This might seem hyperbolic, but it is not an exaggeration.) I have met with him on several occasions, and he has been gracious. (I doubt if he is aware of my knowledge.) I have watched the affair intensify over the last year, and I have also benefited from his generosity. He is engaged in work that I am passionate about and is absolutely the right person for the job. I strongly feel that exposing the affair will create a major distraction that would adversely impact the success of an important effort. My issue: Should I acknowledge this affair and finally force closure? Should I suffer in silence for the next year or two for a project I feel must succeed? Should I be “true to my heart” and walk away from the entire miserable situation and put the episode behind me?