An article at the New York Observer quotes PR guru Richard Edelman as saying that public relations is "the discipline on the rise."

Edelman sees blogs as empowering his clients to get their message directly to the public. "You're not God any more," he reportedly told traditional media.

Edelman is right, but not everyone in his professional has absorbed his message. Housing PR specialists in Chicago, from our experience, are still worshiping the old gods, to their clients' detriment.

Media outlets are proliferating by the minute, and none of them more rapidly than blogs.

Technorati is now tracking more than 21 million blogs and, by some counts, 70,000 new blogs are added every day.

How many of today's public relations "professionals" monitor the blogs that affect their clients' businesses? How many have ever read a blog or know what blogging is?

How many know how to pitch a blogger?

Our headline question is the topic of a thread at the NewPr Wiki.

Consensus view: yup!

My take is that blogs will have an impact, but that novel interactive news releases and other developments yet to unfold will preserve and extend the role of the news release.