Monday, June 2, 2008

It's not easy being a PR person...

Most of you who are PRSA members probably saw the society's e-mail encouraging you to post comments on a recent commentary on the PR industry.

In the commentary, CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen responds to Scott McLellan's tell-all book on the Bush administration citing PRSA's Code of Ethics and saying, "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." Like any good Web story, the article is followed by page after page of comments from PR pros and critics of the profession (see the letter PRSA submitted yesterday).

I personally find it a little tough to take guff about being a liar from someone who is a legal analyst, and I am sure I am not alone in that feeling.

Whether we're seen as professional lunch-takers, liars or bona fide strategists, it shows the industry still has a long way to go to get the credit it deserves.

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