Earlier this week, the normally unflappable American Idol kingdom was shaken by a nasty rumor of power texting. AT&T employees were accused of giving free cell phones to Idol underdog and ultimate winner Kris Allen fans and teaching them how to send multiple text messages at once.

The uproar that followed from fans of the show and those hopelessly devoted to runner-up, Adam Lambert, set the blogosphere on fire. They knew from the night the winner was announced that the competition was fixed and that Adam had actually won. They vowed to never use AT&T again and that the wireless provider had single-handedly ruined their lives.

AT&T’s response was less dramatic:

“In Arkansas, a few local AT&T employees were invited to attend two local watch parties organized by the community. Caught up in the enthusiasm of rooting for their hometown contestant, they brought a small number of demo phones with them and provided texting tutorials to those who were interested.

“Going forward, we will make sure our employees understand our sponsorship celebrates the competition, not individual contestants. That said, it’s quite a leap to suggest that a few individuals could have impacted the final results.”

The reality of the situation for AT&T is that they’ll lose very little – the teenaged fans who lost their minds over the “injustice” are likely members of family plans and have very little control over what carrier they have. The bigger problem is for American Idol. The reality show, like all reality shows, is living on borrowed time and struggling to keep an audience (viewership for the final results show was lower than last year). Its already skeptical audience might just get fed up by the perceived fraud and find another show of the moment. Either way, Idol needs to be more careful about who they pick as sponsors than who America picks as the winner.

The New York Times just made a landmark move in their paper’s history, hiring their first ever Social Media Editor, Jennifer Preston, to direct their entire social media strategy. The former editor of the New York Times Regional Section, her job now is to work side-by-side with editors, reporters, bloggers and other individuals in the social media space to use social tools to find sources, stay on top of trends and break news. Overall, Jennifer is charged with helping the New York Times staff get up-to-date and comfortable with the inner workings of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and Digg, in an effort to the help the paper engage a wider audience.

So, does this mean the Times finally sees the grave importance of the social media revolution? Is Jennifer’s position a reflection of the paper’s belief that to survive in the collapsing newspaper industry they must stay on the pulse of the public’s needs and behaviors? Perhaps. Or, perhaps this is the paper’s way of reeling in their reporters and editors already tweeting and blogging out there, and is a master plan to control these kinds of behaviors by having one centralized person direct all social media activity.

There’s no doubt social media is, well, scary to some papers. Just take a look at the Wall Street Journal’s new policy on “professional conduct.” It includes a lengthy guide for use of online outlets, noting cautions for activities on social networking sites. The WSJ’s policy, actually seems to deter their staff from participating in social media with rules like:

• Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.
• Don’t discuss articles that haven’t been published, meetings you’ve attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you’ve conducted.
• All postings on Dow Jones sites that may be controversial or that deal with sensitive subjects need to be cleared with your editor before posting.
• Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter. Common sense should prevail, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.

Perhaps newspapers need to attempt to find a healthy social media medium. The fact of the matter is now more than ever, reporters want to have a voice, and they are using all the methods of social media out there to be heard. You can choose to stifle the voice, let it run wild, or perhaps gain some control. Whether or not the New York Times is looking to simply evolve and grow, or take back control is yet to be determined. I guess we can all glean our own opinions from Jennifer Preston’s upcoming Tweets and blogs.

As if professional sports didn’t have enough PR issues these days with steroid scandals and incarcerated superstars, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison just added Presidential snubbing to the ever-growing list of public perception infractions.

Harrison turned down an invitation to the White House, along with the rest of the Super Bowl champion Steelers, to meet and be honored by President Obama. Why? He said it’s not that big a deal to him.

It’s just another case of professional athletes being out of touch with every day Americans and their sport paying the PR price for it. I mean come on James, whether you agree with his policies or not, he’s the leader of the free world and he commands some level of respect. In case you haven’t heard, he’s kind of a big deal.

Give Harrison one thing, at least he’s consistently stupid – he passed up on the chance to meet President Bush after the Steelers won the Super Bowl in 2006. The game went on after that mistake too. After all, at the end of the day does the world change if James Harrison doesn’t go to the White House? No. But it’s another unnecessary negative PR hit that the NFL could do without.

So, memo to all future Super Bowl champions: No matter your political views or views of the president in general, just shut your mouth, suck it up and take a free trip to our nation’s capital. As for James Harrison, he has an NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award and two Super Bowl rings, but he still doesn’t have a communications clue. Maybe the third time will be the charm.

Just what is Elizabeth Edwards doing? The wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards is on the road flogging her new book “Resilience,” which talks about how she has dealt with the death of a child, her battle with cancer and, most recently, her husband’s fooling around.

As a PR campaign, this has a lot of people scratching their heads.

The assumption is that this is Mr. Edwards’ first step back into elective politics—or at least it’s supposed to be. With a couple like John and Elizabeth Edwards—young (politically), ambitious and bright—it’s logical to expect that Edwards expects to jump back into the political arena at some point. The tried and true formula for coming back from public embarrassment is to:

1. Apologize
2. Disappear for a while
3. Reappear and demonstrate how you’ve grown as a person
4. Have a third party declare you stronger/better than ever
5. Resume career

That process has worked for folks from Marv Albert to Hugh Grant to Kim Kardashian. (Be patient Michael Phelps.) In America, we forgive people for their mistakes … eventually.

Time heals all wounds—but you need to let a little time pass. The Edwards affair came to light just last year. And while it would be logical for Elizabeth Edwards to go on tour to discuss how her marriage is stronger than ever and that she forgives her husband and he really truly is a great guy, she isn’t doing that. When Oprah asked her if she “still loved him,” Elizabeth did not say yes—she said it’s “complicated.”

Well, if she’s trying to resurrect her husband’s political career, it isn’t too complicated. His career is over … and she just hammered down the final nail.

The alarm was sounded warning of the impending collapse of our nation’s top newspapers, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the Chicago Tribune to the Philadelphia Inquirer, but until recently little attention has been given to the financial well-being of TV news. As many Fortune 500 companies, particularly in the auto and financial services industries, have slashed their budgets, some stations are reporting a 20 to 30 percent drop in ad revenue.

TV news has traditionally been responsible for an average of 40 to 50 percent of a station’s revenue, but now hangs in the balance in some markets. The striking result has been a condensing and blurring of mass media. Stations in major markets are combining camera crews and sharing footage. Local newspapers and broadcasters are assigning stories from a single assignment desk. TV broadcasters are recruiting journalists to produce newscasts on the cheap. Both are bolstering their online presence with added content and interactive features to provide greater value in a 24-hour news cycle. Social media is rapidly becoming the next frontier, with forays into reporter blogging, news anchor twittering, online forums and live chats.

At Braithwaite, we’ve long held the belief that the lines between public relations, marketing, advertising, and branding are blurring. A successful communications campaign requires a fluid integration of these various components. In the absence of traditional advertising revenue, the media is learning a similar lesson in news reporting. The next generation of successful news reporting will be one that adapts to new technology and changing consumer preferences and integrates print, broadcast, Web, and social media to disseminate the news in a timely and relevant format.