Dan Abrams, the former general manager of MSNBC, is launching a media-strategy firm, according to today’s Wall Street Journal. His advantage is using a panel of journalists if your company faces a difficult public relations isssue to “weigh in on how media outlets would likely respond to different PR strategies.”
One of Abrams’s investors believes “big companies will be attracted to its ‘expert network’ and it’s pay-per-use model.”
Isn’t this a conflict of interest? Since when do journalists moonlight as business consultants? Isn’t our industry trying to stay away from this type of model, citing ethics?
What do you think?