Stephen Baker of Business Week/Blogspotting has an interesting post/challenge to PR people. In it he asks if it's kosher for blogging journalists (or journalist bloggers--whichever side you're with) to blog the inner workings between journalists (of the more traditional ilk) and PR folk (of the flack variety).
So--for now, ignoring the debate over what/who/etc. constitutes a journalist--is it okay for journalists to blog the pitches they receive? Stephen thinks so and says this would give more perspective on how companies are pitching their line and positioning themselves. That's cool. But, would he/they treat all pitches equally? Meaning, If he/they received an interesting pitch and blogged it, would that then disqualify the pitch's content from potentially turning into a story later on? I ask because Stephen goes on to say that journalists are "loath to admit that we get story ideas from PR people."
So how would that shake out? Would the authors of pitches that resulted in a story be sourced in stories that make it to BW Online or the magazine?
Jeremy Pepper goes into more detail and brings up some other good points here.