On May 14, O’Dwyers PR carried a column I wrote about the battle over publishing excerpts from David Kirkpatrick’s new book, “The Facebook Effect.” It struck me then as it does now that the problem had little to do with copyright and everything to do language.

The full text is below:

WAR OF WORDS SHOWS PRINT AND WEB DON’T SPEAK SAME LANGUAGE

By John Berard

The war of words – and potentially lawyers – between TechCrunch and Fortune is more than evidence that the web and print worlds don’t speak the same language; it is proof that they may not for a long time.

This will be costly to them and a disservice to their readers.

At issue were excerpts — either to print or on which to draw inspiration — from a new book about Facebook by long-time Fortune editor David Kirkpatrick. The public relations folks at the magazine made the offer to one of the leading web venues for technology news and insight, TechCrunch. That much is clear. That much may be all that is clear.

Fortune says “And if you don’t mind, once you’ve read the excerpts, please let me know if you choose not to post on one and not the other or both, which of course we would love.” TechCrunch hears, “Post the excerpt, please.”

From such tiny acorns can grow some mighty, hard as oak disagreements. But more than just being lost in translation, the disconnect is a public disservice. Fortune and TechCrunch are both trusted sources of information who need to get it together for the rest of us.

What makes the timing on this fight ironic is that it comes at a time when the web is working hard to create a fresh market for magazine and newspaper content.

As James Fallows notes in his cover story in the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly, “How to Save the News,” Google “now considers journalism’s survival crucial to its own prospects.”

And the iPad is being viewed as a way to rejuvenate the subscription business model savaged by the “information wants to be free” Internet. According to New York Magazine, “iWired, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Glamour will be the first Condé Nast magazines to have versions created specifically for the new Apple iPad.”

Both Fortune and TechCrunch seems to want to play a role in what comes next. Otherwise the magazine wouldn’t have offered and the web site would not have accepted. Each was committed to helping the author build value for his work and earn the gratitude of their readers by alerting them to the book’s arrival.

Each valued timeliness, relevance and making sure the guy who created the content got paid. With that much in common, how the heck did they get into a row? With that much in common, they can’t stay mad.

I am betting that the new working relationship between the world wide web and the universe of “All the News That’s Fit to Print” will prove valuable, unless it is killed by expectations set to high, standards set too low or a language barrier that cannot be overcome.

As publishers like Condé Nast fully embrace the rich-media, interactive and real-time nature of the Web and mobile devices they will be forced to learn the lingo. And as web publishers come to see the value of trusted content brands, they will work to partner.

That was the good intention of the deal Fortune and TechCrunch thought they had struck. The only question now is whether those good intentions are merely a paving stone on the way to, well, you know, or are they an early sign of the next big thing?

I am betting on the next big think but I do not underestimate how difficult it is to learn a new language.

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Last year, after closing the doors on a technology start-up I had pushed up the hill for two years, I decided to return to communications consulting.  After many years of casual counsel to “start your own thing,” I did.

On April 1, 2009 (no joke) I launched Credible Context (www.crediblecontext.com), a consultancy devoted to helping companies market their products, services, even themselves by tapping into the persuasive power of their own stories.

I am grateful for the support my initiative has gotten from the world in general (my ideas have been given space in the NY Times, PRWeek, CircleID and other venues relevant to the profession) but it is the willingness of a handful of people to become clients that has made a year begun in anxiety, end in confidence.

Clarity, customer value and context will continue to be the hallmarks of success in the coming year.  Thanks for letting me be a part of it.

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The recent snowstorms in Washington, D.C. led to more than closed schools, postponed events and shovel-sore muscles. The unusually cool atmospherics became a hot metaphor in the argument against climate change. After all, how could the climate be warming and there be all this snow?

The back-and-forth was captured in a story on Fox News:

The battle between science and politics also was the subject of a recent NPR  “On the Media” story on the now-debunked link between a measles vaccine and autism.  Here is what Dr. Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal, The Lancet, had to say:

“We used to think that we could publish speculative research which advanced interesting new ideas which may be wrong, but which were important to provoke debate and discussion. We don’t think that now.  What we don’t seem able to do is we don’t seem able to have a rational conversation in a public space about difficult, controversial issues, without people drawing a conclusion which could be very, very adverse.”

The most disturbing part of what Dr. Horton said, because it seems to be true, is “we don’t seem able to have a rational conversation.”  For communications professionals this is at best a caution, at worst, a call to arms.  Most of our work is focused on adding context to the actions of our clients.

But context — be it scientific, medical or financial — requires an ability to see in three-dimensions.  How can we succeed when our public discourse is locked in black-and-white?  It demands we be more precise.

When the LA Times took another look at the D.C. snowstorm it did just that:

“Increased snowfall fits a pattern suggested by many climate models, in which rising temperatures warm the world’s bodies of water, leading to more evaporation.  Climate scientists say the amount of atmospheric moisture has increased, which they predict will bring more rain in warmer conditions and more snow in freezing temperatures.

‘All you need is cold air and moisture to meet each other’ to make snow, said Jay Gulledge, senior scientist for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. ‘And with global warming, the opportunities to do that should be more frequent.’”

The misunderstanding and misuse of the word “warming” in the “global warming” warning undercuts its value as context.  Perhaps “change” as in “climate change” is more effective, but, based on Mr. Michaels said to Fox News, that may be lost, too.

The  most effective argument at a time when science is so willingly dismissed may not yet have been made.  But just because the task of adding depth and perspective to political, social and commercial conversations has gotten difficult doesn’t mean it cannot be fought and won.

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The Massachusetts special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy had a twist of an ending — Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat (and current State Attorney General) Martha Coakley.

In moves reminiscent of a call to “round up the usual suspects,” Democrats are pointing fingers and conjuring conspiracies while Republicans cite the one-state result as evidence that the nation has rejected the policies of President Obama.

Sadly, it is not important which, if either, has a leg to stand on.  What matters is that politics, the way it is practiced in the United States, has again played its trump card over policy.

The status quo may need to change, but change is unsettling to the special interests who benefit from holding it at bay.  Worse, it may be that those who need the status quo changed the most had a hand in maintaining it.

Newly minted Senator Brown won the election with about 1.17 million votes.  Combined with the 1.06 million cast for Ms. Coakley, the total represents just 54 percent of Massachusetts’ registered voters (and only about 45 percent of people in the state eligible to vote).  Where the heck was everyone?

In November ‘08, 72 percent of registered voters went to the polls to elect President Barack Obama.  The 18 percent difference in registered voter turnout between then and now represents 750,000 votes.  Brown beat Coakley by 110,000 votes.

The Presidential and special Senate elections suggest there is a positive relationship between the number of people who vote and the responsiveness of our politics.

As more people vote, the contributions of special interests hold less sway.  As more people vote, politicians are caused to listen more closely to constituents so as to keep elected office.  As more people vote, there is a premium put on leadership. These seem like good outcomes.

So, why don’t we vote?  Where were the good people of Massachusetts who turned out at the end of 2008, but stayed home in early 2010?  Maybe they did not think they had a reason to vote. This is not a political problem but a communications challenge.

Perhaps they felt the race was over days in advance as media reports persisted in reporting on the race, not its reasons.  Perhaps they thought their cause was lost, having learned of the U.S. Senate’s new math where 41 is a majority.  Perhaps they resented the way each candidate was foisted on them, wishing a pox on both their houses.

Here is a thought.  Presidential advisor Rahm Emanuel has said “change requires a crisis.”  If he is right, when it comes to elections the best kind of change might be the anarchy that would arise if everyone voted.

If all 4.2 million registered Massachusetts voters had gone to the polls, it would have created havoc for those who benefit from the status quo.  If all 5 million who could vote, did vote, it would instigate just the kind of uncertainty that leads to anarchy.  And if that became the norm, well, now we’re talking real change.

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Plug the word “context” into the Google News search box today and you’ll get 33,495 results.  This is a serious uptick — 15 percent — since the last time we looked.  That is good news.

Some of the total is driven by the fight between Juan Manuel Marquez and Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas.  More was due to the renewed attempts by the Obama Administration to instigate peace in the Middle East and initiate health care reform.

My favorite story may be the one from the Motley Fool which looks at whether the much reported “housing recovery” is hype or reality.  Here is the story, in context.

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Type the word “context” into the Google News search box today and you’ll get 32,697 results.

The disputed Iranian election and the Israeli comments on a two-state path to peace, added to the Obama Administration efforts in the Middle East, were the drivers this week.

Just guessing, but with the health care reform debate moving to full-throttle this week, we may have some new drivers in the next report.

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Type the word “context” into the search box at Google News today and you get 33,218 results.

This will be the baseline; let’s see how it rises or falls and what might be the drivers.   This week the key driver seems to continue to be the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court with a dash of President Obama in Cairo and the introduction of the Palm Pre to add to the mix.

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Type the word “context” into the search box at Google News today and you get 30,952 results.

This will be the baseline; let’s see how it rises or falls and what might be the drivers.   This week the key driver seems to be the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

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Word comes today that GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors, is changing its name to Ally Bank.  The reason, as stated by the company’s CEO, is “…a new brand with a new approach of treating customers with total transparency.”  How had they been treating customers?

This is a common, almost reflexive response from companies who think their present situation can benefit with a break from the past, despite the weight of evidence that a name change has little effect on market perception.  New York’s Sixth Avenue’s name was changed to Avenue of the Americas in 1945, yet Radio City Music Hall is today still found on “6th Avenue between 50th street and 51st street.”

GMAC has a lot of misguided company, too.  Blackwater, the private security contracting company that was kicked out of Iraq, now operates in Afghanistan as Xe and AIG, the poster company of the excesses of unregulated financial shenanigans, changed its name first to AIU and is now likely to change it again.

These companies are doing a lot of running, but not very much hiding.

The best recent example of the genre came when Philip Morris, the tobacco-centric food conglomerate, changed its name to Altria.  Not only did the market devalue the move — “This name change is entirely cosmetic in nature” — but the new name accentuated the problem Philip Morris executives had with their brand in the first place.

Altria already was the name of an Alabama-based health care company.

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