I’m worried about employee communications as a profession based on shockingly bad performance across the business world. That doesn’t mean some companies aren’t getting it right. In fact, in some organizations, employee communications is replacing media relations as the hot communications spot.

That’s the conclusion of Amy Friedman in a piece she wrote for Positioning Online, the Web newsletter from communications recruiting firm Heyman Associates. “CEOs understand that in order to communicate objectives, internal communications must be a priority,” she writes. “It?s not just a means to ensure the employee population is invested in the agenda at the top, but also the pipeline for information to flow back to the C-suite.”

To make her case, Friedman interviews internal communications execs from Agilent, General Motors, Verizon, General Electric, Merck, Citigroup, and The Gap, among others.