Goodbye Journalism, Hello PR

Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine has ruminations on the death of journalism as a gatekeeper of public opinion and the consequent rise of public relations as a tool to guide what the public is thinking about people, events and issues. The latest incantation of this comes from Howard Kurtz's Washington Post story on how bloggers broke the New York Times' story on WalMart's employing of bloggers to spread the company message throughout the Web, thus blunting the impact of the Times' story.