I had a chance to join some A-list PR bloggers today on a

PRSA technology panel hosted by Eric Schwartzman who reluctantly left his three-year-old in CA to moderate. (Thanks, Eric!)It was good to see David Parmet again, and meet in person Robert Ricci and

B.L. Ochman. All of us had a hand in the Constantin-driven PR Blog Week 2.0, last fall. In fact, B.L. asked whether we’ll see PR BlogWeek 3.0 (or 2.1?). Will we?The audience of 50 pros — young and not-so-young — many of whom on the corporate side of the PR equation, seemed to appreciate much of what was shared. However, there was one point during the exchange when the issue of “command and control” surfaced. My fellow panelists, almost in unison, proclaimed that there’s no such thing as command & control any longer.

Being the mild-mannered contrarian that I am, I posited that command & control remains valid. After all, what would one call all those media trainers prepping their clients for live TV interview segments or the drafting of message points or a speech? Aren’t these vital manifestations of command and control that remain in practice at most enterprises?

In the end, we all seemed pretty much in sync on this scary, tumultuous and exciting new era of digitally-driven dialogue. I just hope that we don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. There are many core competencies in traditional PR that should never be forsaken.

Now here’s a novel PR strategy: proclaim that you slept with Lindsay Lohan to draw attention to your band’s soon-to-be-released music CD.That’s just what Ms. Lohan’s publicist Leslie Sloan alleges, according to the lead item in the inimitable Jeannette Walls’ “The Scoop” column today on MSNBC.com. Harry Judd of the band McFly describes in a track on the new CD how he was seduced by Ms. Lohan following a night out clubbing.

If only Ms. Lohan’s publicist had recognized that her denial of her client’s tryst would make bigger news than the acknowledgement thereof…given how prolific the actress has become in such relational matters.

“‘He’s using these lies for publicity,’ Lohan’s rep, Leslie Sloane, tells the Scoop. ‘It’s convenient how he’s making up these stories when he has an album coming out.’”

Personally, I think there’s some validity to the claim and that after (yet another) night out partying, this particular liaison probably just slipped Ms. Lohan’s mind.

When does an issue reach crisis dimensions requiring public acknowledgement and action? The chocolate makers at Cadbury Schweppes were accused last week of dragging their feet in the face of allegations that their chocolate bars contained some rare strain of salmonella.

“‘We followed regulations at the time of detection, which was below the level for any alert or concern,’ said Cadbury’s spokeswoman Andraea Dawson-Shepherd in an interview.”

So what prompted the company to suddenly assert its position in the court of public opinion (other than the prospect of a total product meltdown)?

Does a crisis only become a crisis when a mainstream news organization splashes the news on its pages and airwaves? Last week, this blog reported on an issue-turned-crisis for AOL when a blogger posted an annoying conversation he had with an AOL customer service rep when trying to discontinue service. Had that conversation not spilled onto the pages of The New York Times and subsequently to other mainstream outlets, would AOL have felt compelled to take action?

What about Comcast? When one of the MSO’s servicemen dozed off on the couch of a cable subscriber during a house call, the subscriber decided to capture the snooze on video then post it on YouTube. Had the video, and word of it, remained in the domain of the fragmented, but growing number of online media consumers, would Comcast had suffered as big a black eye?

As PR counselors, our role often is to advise enterprises when action should be taken, if at all. More often than not, a story will dissipate after the first news cycle. However, the growth of citizen journalism and viral nature of digital content present us with a greater challenge in deciding which situations merit a public statement or action and which would be categorized as knee-jerks. (Some will argue that every wart should be made transparent to the public.)

Did the 300,000 downloads of the Comcast video prompt the public apology and tangible action from the company, or was it the embarrassing mainstream media coverage trumpeting the YouTube video? I wonder.