Chuck, these are all valid points, and frankly as a 25-year veteran of the industry, I believe its "coming out" party has been a bummer. There are many many redeeming aspects of public relations. Richard Edelman (and I) believe that transparency in what we do will be the key to redemption for our industry's reputation. It is one of the reasons I'm penning this blog: to show how PR plays out in what we read and watch. It's not bribing a radio host to advocate, nor is it party promotion like Lizzie Grubman.
I don't want to be too analytical or intellectual in this blog. I'm trying to keep it irreverant -- since irreverance seems to be what plays best ion America today.
Peter
Looks like PR needs a good PR firm.
Sorry, but I can't get too upset at PR Watch and what they're doing. I remember when PR was the human face for companies (usually a happy face), and when necessary handled damage control. PR was less proactive, more 'there when you need them.'
Nowadays it certainly seems as if Public Relations=Propaganda. As far as the other disciplines - well, advertising isn't advertising, marketing isn't marketing, communications isn't communications - now everything is 'Branding' - whatever the hell that is. (For thirty-five odd years I thought I knew what a brand was. Now I'm not so sure.)
And the kicker (also related to the Okrent blog entry): news isn't news anymore. It's opinion.
You probably don't want to 'blog' this or talk about it at all, but I'd be interested in knowing your opinion of Richard Edelman's take on PR for PR. I remember the NYT article, and know PR Watch ripped into it - but it seemed to ol' naïve me that Mr. Edelman was at least making moves in the right direction, however clunky and awkward.
Here's my real non-answerable question: I'm a pretty honest guy in advertising - and you're a pretty honest guy in Public Relations. Why do we have to wade through all this S**T?
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