Today’s look at the PR-Media relationship comes to us from our very own Jake Ward.

During Monday’s round up, the motley crew at the PR Breakfast Club posed an interesting question to the community of professional flacks out there – what happens when PR people don’t answer the phone? Or more accurately, PR people that don’t answer the phone, return calls or email and generally mimic the illusive media targets we are aim for every day. The answer, of course, is nothing. Nothing happens. No information is exchanged, no relationships are built, nothing happens and no one wins.

PR pros know all too well the lengths we must go to build relationships with editors, reporters, bookers and producers. We pitch stories, we pitch ideas and angles, and when push comes to shove – we buy the coffee and the drinks. It is the nature of the engage and influence business. Building relationships is about give and take and those relationships ultimately buy you time. Five minutes here and 45 seconds there to pitch your angle or your client, and that is often the difference between getting heard or getting shut out.

A lot has been made in recent years about the erosion of media relations work in the PR field. Magazines and blogs have dedicated columns to identifying the “worst pitches” in the industry and targeted flacks as the reason for a decline quality pitches. To be fair, email, digital channels and user generated content has changed the way we interact with the 4th estate, but it is inaccurate to blame PR pros in general. The truth is, more outlets with smaller audiences and more products aimed at more discerning consumers, has made quality public relations more difficult than ever. That said – some things are as easy as they have ever been – like answering the phone.

I’ve never been through bankruptcy. And I hope I never have to.

I have, however, had the opportunity to help a few clients who’ve been forced to to visit the bankruptcy court and later reemerge as something — well — something different.  Some took on a whole new identity.  Others dusted off the logo put a bit of polish on it and moved on.  There were as many different strategies as there were clients.

One thing I know.  It’s wasn’t fun.  *(At least for the company … the advisors had a ball … more about that later.)

So it is with an almost macabre fascination that we all watch the venerable General Motors go through this wrenching exercise made all the more horrible by its sheer size and its association with everything American — good and bad.

For GM, the strategy appears to have a heavy dose of “death to the old GM”.  Here’s how the GM CEO put it:

To those of you who have never tried a G.M. vehicle or have tried one and given up on us, we look forward to the chance to win your business and earn back your trust. Give us another chance. The G.M. that many of you knew, the G.M. that, in fact, had let too many of you down is history. Today marks the beginning of what will be a new company, a new G.M. dedicated to building the very best cars and trucks, highly fuel-efficient, world-class quality, green technology development, and with truly outstanding design.

Pretty harsh.  Almost demeaning.  Did he really need to plead?  Did he need to call out the “old GM” just like Cheney called out the “old Europe” as something to be discarded?

What is your advice to General Motors?  Before answering that question I suggest that you read the Ad Age story on “How Would You Pitch the GM Account?”  It is a quick but fascinating read.   My favorite quote is from John Colman, CEO of the Via Group in Portland who, when asked would you be interested in pitching the GM business now, said …

A near-bankrupt client, a low chance of success, crushing global scrutiny with hands-on government oversight every step of the way?  Of course we’d do it.  That much fun should be illegal.

I love our business.

I’m thinking that the “new” General Motors can best redefine and renew its brand through innovative new media strategies.  Their advantage — they already have a strong social media infrastructure, some excellent social media talent, and some comparative advantage in the field.  More about all that later.

And yes.  They need to make good cars as well.  But the fact is that they do (you just have to find them amongst the ‘not-s0-good’ cars).

More about my social media plan for GM in a later post.

Until then, how would you advise GM on its new brand strategy?

John Wilke died last Friday. You may remember him as one of the best investigative business journalists of the past two decades – a Wall Street Journal veteran and, as the heartfelt tributes of his colleagues show, a true character. I remember him as all of that, but also the blonde-maned, post-hippie guy I grew up with in White Plains, New York.

They must have been putting something in the water in those days, because our little city nurtured some truly great newspapermen in a remarkably short period of time: John; David Sanger of The New York Times; Keith Schneider, a former Times environmental reporter and current blogger and environmental activist. Indeed, Keith’s heartfelt tribute to Wilke, as he was universally known, has made me think a lot about words, the reporters who love them, and the troubled industry in which they persevere.

I realize that John, Keith and others came of age in a golden age that, in retrospect, was perhaps traditional journalism’s last gasp. They were Watergate boys, who believed that, even if you didn’t look like Robert Redford, you might use the power of words for no less a purpose than to bring down a corrupt presidency. John remained a newspaperman his entire career, but how ironic that he died just as it appeared that the Boston Globe (of which he was also an alum) might go under – the latest in a string of spectacularly tragic newspaper closings.

The romance of the word, even amidst channel chaos, digital diversity and citizen scoops, also came home to me as I read the Sunday Times, and a triumphant ode to the unlikely victory of Mine That Bird in the Kentucky Derby. There’s nothing that says you can’t write this in a blog, but is there anything quite like reading it in newsprint?

“Sometimes this game brings you to tears. Sometimes it feels right to be wrong. And always it is better than O.K. when the tears streaming down your face are caused by a man in a black cowboy hat and an almost handlebar mustache, a Cajun jockey with more horse than book sense and a scrawny $9,500 gelding.”

Please don’t think I’m a Luddite. I’m a huge fan of the new journalism, and the role of social media in transforming both how we get our news and how we change the world. But, just as I’ve had to come to terms with an old friend dying too young, I find myself having to come to terms with what increasingly looks like the end of an era.