The Good, The Bad, The Spin

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. (more…)

How wild horse advocates spin-doctor a volatile issue and spread misinformation

They are one of Nevada’s most misunderstood attributes. From long eyelashes in Disney movies to the ongoing anthropomorphic attitudes expressed by all stripes of mostly well-intentioned folks, Nevada’s wild horses are universally admired. They are also endlessly mired in controversy.

This is to be expected. As our “backyard pets,” that appear essentially harmless and carefree, it is easy to understand why people would be offended as the suggestion of removal of horses from rangelands—or human interference of any kind.

These good intentions are driven by emotion and passion, which frequently step in the way of reason and the desire to seek out science-based knowledge of the issue, especially if such information ends up unpleasant or contradictory to one’s beliefs. Nothing exemplifies this more than the uproar recently stirred when none other than Willie Nelson and Snoop Dog recorded audio commercials urging people to call Nevada’s governor to “intervene on behalf of our wild horses.” (more…)

In case the point has not been drilled home enough, those on the receiving end of public relations ineptitude are fed up. It started last fall when an editor for Wired publicly posted PR people’s email address–those he deemed guilty of overly annoying PR spam. My favorite comment to this post:

“As a VP in the PR industry, I’d like to suggest a few things to these journalists who like to throw a hissy fit….”

The point missing in this statement is the precedent behavior: PR folks spending a good amount of time and effort spamming journalists. The antecedent behavior is the journalists striking back. Rightfully so.

PR people have long been objects of derision, and now they are being publicly outed. This past week, Lifehacker went a step further by not only naming names in a new PR Spammers Wiki, but showing us how to block a very specific list of PR agencies–a lot of the big dogs are on the list–using my favorite email tool, Gmail. The irony is that Lifehacker is a site devoted to efficiently getting things done.

Here are a few responses. Overall some came out as being defensive, some apologetic and one hedged on being threatening.

• PR Squared
• socialTNT
• Stowe Boyd.