Today is the Holocaust Remembrance Day. Not sure yet how much coverage it is going to get, but today I was honored to be a part of the small but efficient press team at the United Nations. Last year, one gracious lady named Gertrude Stein, a Holocaust survivor, told a story that drives me to tears every time I tell it. She told the audience of survivors and their families how she was rescued by an American soldier after being kept prisoner in Auschwitz for 3 years.  At the time, she weighed 40 kilograms (frighteningly skeletal), her hair had turned completely white and she hadn’t had a bath for three years. Nevertheless, the soldier fell in love with her and they eventually married.

This year, the ceremony wasn’t as informal but nevertheless moving. During the ceremony, Dan Gillerman, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. commented about the absurdity and the horror of the Holocaust denial conference, which recently took place in Tehran. Just the other day, the U.N adopted a resolution condemning any attempts to deny Holocaust. Not surprisingly, Iranian delegation voted against it.

While filming the ceremony, I got to thinking – why should it be made illegal to deny Holocaust? Don’t get me wrong, I am Jewish and am immensely proud of my heritage. Iran’s attempts to deny what happened to my people would be horrible, if it wasn’t so laughable. That said, the law passed a few years back in Europe making it illegal to deny Holocaust is questionable only from the point of view of free speech. Again, I am not the one who would stand listening to someone like David Duke (who made a number of combative statements during his appearance on Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room some time ago) denying Holocaust and calling for a free “debate.” But somehow, somewhere deep inside I wondered whether however harrowing, this type of a discussion has a right to exist.

The Economist this week questions just that as well. When the German government initiated the law a few years back, it certainly had the best intentions. The drive of the Germans to heal the wounds of the past is perfectly understandable. But as the article rightfully states, this is a slippery slope. There were other hateful regimes in Europe, like Communism, that killed tens of millions of people. Should denying the gulags be made illegal too? By this token, it should. Should America then adopt laws making it a crime to deny slavery? Does anyone even deny slavery? I am sure, as absurd as it sounds, there are those misguided types as well.  “Holocaust denial laws are wrong whoever imposes them,” claims the article. Besides, it makes a circus out of the likes of Duke or author David Irving, who served time in jail for denying Holocaust in public.

It is sad that there are those who firmly believe that 6 million Jews perished upon their own insistence, or made up this story for political gain. It is even more upsetting that these types of statements are made for political gain 62 years after Allies rescued the last prisoners from Poland. Stories of Gertrude Stein remind us how frightening these denials are. However, imposing laws and limiting certain rights should also be approached with great caution. To quote The Economist again, “If European politicians want to do something about Holocaust denial, perhaps they should worry more about the government of Iran, which contains a Holocaust-denier one really needs to worry about.”

I can’t say that I am particularly interested in anything related to Paris Hilton. But one must admit, the amount of media exposure the girl has received, in part thanks to the Internet, is mildly astonishing to say the least. In the latest publicity nightmare, (and I thank my lucky stars I am not in any way a part of her publicity team, not that I would ever be one but let’s just pretend for now), Paris’s more intimate items were auctioned off to the highest bidder because the heiress forgot to pay her storage bill of $208. Whoever bought her stored items recognized the potential value, profit and publicity that will swirl around it all, and scanned every single item, ultimately putting it all up on a newly created Parisexposed.com. Not sure how many hits the website has received so far but my wild guess is many. So what’s the premise? You can create a login, and for $40 dollars a month (!!!) receive new and updated items from Paris’s most private and personal collection of junk such as to-do lists and medical prescriptions. This is a monthly subscription. Seriously. I rest my case.

One of the more peculiar items in Paris’s locker collection is a prescription for Valtrex, which thanks to multitudes of television ads, is a prescription for genital herpes. There’s also a strange record for an abortion under the name of Amber Taylor, who has the same birthday as Paris. I wouldn’t exactly put this past a famous person to check in for this type of a procedure under a fake name. There’s also an extensive list of her friends’ phone numbers.

Understandably, the website is receiving a ton of press. MSNBC dedicated a 10-minute segment to Parisexposed.com on their morning show on Saturday. While chewing freshly cooked apple pancakes this morning, I heard about Paris’s Valtrex prescription at least three times. Consider the public relations nightmare all this is going to create in her camp. In her defense, I would also consider how the Internet has further robbed her of her privacy. Her personal choice of friends, drug use and sexual partners aside, who are we to know all this? Moreover, why do we feel we have the right to know it and to desire to want more–because she’s a public figure? Unfortunately, modern tools allow people to stop at nothing to quickly and cheaply expose someone in this manner.

From a publicity standpoint, how do you explain something like this?? I say the best thing to do is to stay the heck silent. This is probably the one crisis management situation where silence is the best remedy for success. The less her camp addresses these amateur porn videos, photographs of Paris kissing girls and smoking pot, the better. But for all us gossip mongers out there, let’s once again thank the Internet for providing us infinite entertainment for our seemingly much staler lives.

In his book “Blog Marketing,” Jeremy Wright describes a notion of thought-leadership. Essentially, the term refers to someone who leads by “proposing new and innovative ideas,” as someone who leads by example. How many of us can say that about our boss? I am sure not many. One of the characteristics of a thoughtful leader is that he or she isn’t afraid to constantly interact with employees as well as customers, and become better known in the marketplace. Blogs certainly provide an excellent platform for a leader to become more visible, prominent and thus, influential. The one blog that did come to mind as I was reading this chapter was Richard Edelman’s 6 AM blog. I read it on the monthly basis and personally consider it to be an excellent window into what many consider the leading PR agency in the world. Mr. Edelman isn’t shy about engaging with his readers and clients. He writes one of the more interesting and detailed blogs one would expect of a thoughtful leader. He didn’t hide during the Edelman/Wal-Mart fiasco, but instead quickly came forward apologizing for the mistakes of the company. By coming forward quickly, Edelman showed a brilliant strategy—the sooner the leader addresses his/her company’s mistakes, the sooner the issue itself dies down. Aside from that, he writes about his experiences at conferences, thoughts on environment, PR industry, technology, NGOs and much more. Simply put, anyone who is interested in public relations as a topic or a career should read Mr. Edelman’s blog on a weekly basis.

Mr. Edelman’s blog serves also as a window into his mind and allows others to interact with him in a very public way. Just to think that a few years back, public’s interacting in this manner with a CEO of a large PR agency was close to impossible. Moreover, by blogging on a weekly basis, Richard Edelman has positioned himself as one of the more thoughtful leaders in the public relations industry today.

Perhaps not as technically savvy as Mr. Edelman but nevertheless a PR guru himself, John Margaritis, is the head of the public relations arm of Euro RSCG Worldwide. About a month ago, I wrote him a letter asking for a meeting and unlike many to whom I reached out to in the industry, he wrote me back saying he would be pleased to meet with me any time. Mr. Margaritis is one of those A-class sentimental and brilliant gentlemen who reminisces about the good old days when communications was much “simpler”—by that he means typed and even hand-written letters. Although he doesn’t write a blog, Mr. Margaritis and his firm quickly recognized the power of blogs and digital media. “Blogging and digital media is the way of the future. At our company we’re in the thick of it.” To this day, Mr. Margaritis regrets not firing back at what he called a “misleading and bitter” report 60 Minutes did about one of his clients a while back. With today’s blogs and videocasting, he said, he would have fired back at the program much more efficiently, essentially saving his client’s business.

Blogs are becoming increasingly important when it comes to leadership positioning. By expressing innovation and thought on your blog, companies’ leaders can position themselves as a rare and much coveted thoughtful-leader. It is a tool for a leader to invite transparency and authenticity. I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Wright’s notion that blogs should not be used as yet another marketing tool. As he rightfully notes, consumers are being marketed to enough, and should never feel “they’re being talked at, but talked with.” Inadvertently, however, a blog becomes a marketing tool by hopefully creating a public good will. Blogs posted by companies’ leaders do allow customers or other interested parties a window into the company, that is perhaps more intimate than what they have experienced before. Companies and their leaders no longer have to hide in the style of the leadership at Exxon Mobile, but have an opportunity to come forward with their mistakes as well as accomplishment and invite feedback and interaction. Doing precisely that can prevent a media firestorm and make the issue go away much sooner, benefiting the company and the customers in the long run. For public relations, this may be just one of the more valuable tools for gauging and influencing public opinion.

For someone like me, who isn’t too familiar with the blogosphere, it’s difficult to distinguish what constitutes a good blog and what doesn’t. One could say Arianna Huffington’s HuffingtonPost has been a huge success. It is gaining readership and subsequently, influence. Gawker, a popular New York gossip blog is another one. But it seems good influential blogs are still few and far in between. Blogs that do make a social or political impact abroad especially fascinate me.  I am specifically talking about the blog that’s trying to bring down Starbucks in the Forbidden City. The blog has gotten so much attention and support in China that the story has landed on the front page of the Marketplace section of today’s Journal. Thousands of fellow bloggers rallied behind a 29-year-old television journalist who is strongly opposing the coffee giant from selling lattes in the middle of a site that carries so much historic significance for the Chinese people and the rest of the world. Personally, I am curious to see how Starbucks will respond. So far, the company is staying mum about its plans. From a public relations perspective, a company of this magnitude and clout has an obligation to be particularly careful and attentive to cultural nuances of this kind. Today, Starbucks has a 10,000-store presence around the world and is spreading quickly. The company makes no secret about wanting to make China its second largest market after the U.S. A good PR move would be to remove the coffee kiosk from the site and to do it as quickly as possible. Simply put, this would be to be socially responsible and sensitive thing to do. Starbucks carries an enormous responsibility to remain sensitive to the particulars of the Chinese culture. Contrary to my personal beliefs,  one analyst mentioned in the article pointed out in the article that a good publicity mission of the company is to monitor blogs of this sort and keep them under control, instead of allowing an outcry like this to happen.  Monitoring the blogs is indeed important for any successful PR initiative, but it is that much more important to make strategic business decisions that would not alienate your future customers by installing your brand in the middle of a historic site.  It is imperative to remain sensible and reasonable in order to earn good graces of the Chinese public. If Starbucks is to gain a huge presence in China, it has to start on a good note. Removing this shop would be a great start. I strongly hope Starbucks does the right thing.