The problems in the response to Andrew Cohen at CBS

At the end of a Sunday, the last thing I expect to find in my inbox is an email labeled “urgent news” from the Public Relations Society of America. The exact subject line: “Urgent News from PRSA: Response to CBS Story Challenging Public Relations.”

Oh goody, I thought, PRSA is growing a pair. This should be fun.

Then I read the missive. First, it wasn’t a story as the subject line enticed us to believe. The beginning line of the email tells us that in fact PRSA fired off a letter in response to a CBS commentary, “in which legal analyst Andrew Cohen challenged the integrity of the public relations profession.”

Small problem, right away: We are the cogs of an industry that desperately needs challenging. We are our own best critics, ever ready not to say anything bad about one another. We don’t call one another out for unethical practices, spin-doctoring, spamming reporters, irrelevant story pitches or just plain ineptitude.

Here’s what Cohen said:

“Show me a PR person who is ‘accurate’ and ‘truthful,’ and I’ll show you a PR person who is unemployed.

“The reason companies or governments hire oodles of PR people is because PR people are trained to be slickly untruthful or half-truthful. Misinformation and disinformation are the coin of the realm, and it has nothing to do with being a Democrat or a Republican.”

PRSA’s response is stunningly limp. Some examples:

“Contrary to baseless assertions…,” “Curiously, you also assert that lying is no big deal. To the public relations professional, that is far from the truth.” “Building upon a foundation of integrity, implementation of those professional skills can also yield some very positive and powerful outcomes.”

PRSA’s first error is its knee-jerk response. Those of us in government communications are used to “baseless assertions,” many of which are best ignored. Especially those that paint such an intentionally goading, broad stroke. Especially those that are deliberately crafted as ratings- and hit-seeking commentary. PRSA would have better served its members by commenting on the matter at hand–”this past week’s revelations that former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan lied to the American people about certain vital policy decisions within the Bush Administration.” PRSA didn’t a give a hint of a word in its correspondence about this major, ongoing grievance committed too often by political machines. 

PRSA’s second error is to draft a lengthy, meager response. If you’re going to go for the balls, the writing should reflect such intentions. Instead, PRSA’s tone is defensive, vaguely sarcastic and full of unnecessary and hollow counter examples of how ethical PR people supposedly are.

PRSA’s third error is in its targeting. PRSA encouraged members to post responses below the original column. This led to embarrassing defenses by and of PR people. Technical glitches, or user errors, led to multiple posts by the same author, which adds to a perception of PR ineptitude.

Results so far of PRSA’s tactics are questionable. No real news has been generated, ridicule has been crafted and Cohen drafted a response today to counter the negative posts he was receiving–in other words, he gets more time in the spotlight for himself. Although he back peddles and apologizes in his new comment, which is twice as long as the original, here’s his final jab:

“I’m sorry I compared your PR association to the Burglars’ Association of America. That wasn’t nice. But of course there is no Burglars’ Association of America. At least my animal analogies worked, though, right?”

Mission accomplished. Thanks, PRSA.