Every journalist knows that PR agencies will try to control the message. But we rarely get to see how it works. Now, thanks to a slip up by Microsoft’s PR, we can.

This month’s issue of Wired has a series of features on how what it calls radical transparency can help companies develop a closer relationship with the public.

One of these pieces looks at Microsoft’s blogging strategy, its Channel 9 (and 10 now). But the sting in the tail is a PR briefing document by Waggener Edstrom apparently sent by mistake to journalist Fred Vogelstein.

For those of use who have dealt with Microsoft in the past, (and I used to all the time when I was a journalist at the BBC), it is a great read, especially the detailed analysis of the reporter’s background and perspective:

He is digging for tension where it does not exist. We have to be hard core on this point and communicate in no uncertain terms the level of executive commitment and support for Channel 9 and 10.

The interesting thing is how the PR company has responded. In its view, this is a fuss about nothing. On its blog, it argues that there is nothing nefarious going on. In typical PR manner, the agency says it is all about ‘helping’ both sides get the best out of an interview.

Somehow this doesn’t quite wash with me. Yes, it always helps to have an interviewee who is well briefed. But too often, this can end up with the interviewee pushing an agenda.

In the case of the Wired article, it was trying to persuade the reporter that openness is in Microsoft’s DNA. And it seems to have backfired.

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