The grapevine from one point of view

What do You think, is grapevine a good or bad thing? A friend or an enemy? And how can it affect to PR?

As we all know, YouTube is so handy and can cause so much good that there must be a sting in the tail, too. The negative side. Everything good or positive has to have that other side, right? I know I’m a perus pessimisti (pessimist). Or am I just right?

To get back to the point, YouTube can further the positive as well as the negative publicity. And one good and still quite fresh, yet much discussed, example is Mr. Kimmo Wilska’s appearance on YLE News on 13th October.

As most of us know, Kimmo Wilska is the country’s most well known English-speaking newsreader who took a swig live on air. Or at least he pretended taking. And as we all understand, the whole incident was meant to be a funny joke. As it was, I think. But apparently it didn’t make everybody laugh… The bosses didn’t find Wilska’s prank appropriate so, he got sacked.

Thanks to YouTube, also those who didn’t see the incident live have a chance to see it later on. Perhaps YLE isn’t so happy about this opportunity, but it’s their problem. As I note earlier, there’s almost always the plus and the minus sides on the grapevine. Both positive and negative things can spread like wildfire via YouTube. YLE’s bosses thought that Wilska’s joke gained the wrong kind of publicity – not the PR they would like to maintain. So how is it, is any publicity good publicity?

And as far as YouTube is concerned it can be surprisingly efficient in many ways. One day you can really benefit from it but the other it might turn its back on you.