Lies and Secrets: the currency of public relations
You don’t have to dig too far to find criticisms of public relations as involving lying and other less than ethical practices. The normal response from the industry is denial, citation of codes of conduct and finger pointing at isolated ‘others’.
But is lying really an absolute ‘do or don’t do’ matter? In reality, doesn’t [...]
PR is what PR does – a question of ethics
Not surprisingly there’s been a great deal of discussion of ethics in relation to the News Corp phone-hacking scandal. Although journalism and corporate governance are facing the real ethical questions, public relations has been brought into the mix by many commentators. Indeed, the Vancouver Sun attributes any ethical lapses in journalism to the practice of [...]
OOPS! Gordon Brown’s recent debacle leads public relators to think this one out, with some care….
If a subject to be trusted is ‘one who does what he says….walk the talk and, when useful, talk the walk…’ then we must discipline ourselves to think, speak privately and publicly as if our thoughts and words were to appear on the front page of the New York Times.
Why Every Communicator Should Agonize about France’s “Game of Death”
The power of the media and the ethics of communication are recurring themes for PR professionals and other communcators. Can an authoritative media voice push anyone to cross ethical lines they think are non-negociable?
Difference between King III and King II Reports on Governance
The King Report on Governance for South Africa 2009 and the King Code of Governance Principles (King III) plus the Practice Notes that support it, were released at the beginning of September. According to Toni Muzi Falconi, “it constitutes a dramatic acceleration of the growth of our profession. Can we now prove to be up [...]
The two-faced god and our cusp catastrophe
News that celebutante Kim Kardashian is to produce a ‘reality’ show on public relations sent shivers of dread down my spine this week. More than anything else, it highlighted (for me) the fact that as a profession, we are in the midst of a cusp catastrophe that requires attention from us all.
For several months now [...]
Cultural diversities [sic], isn’t it implicit?
As early as my teenage years, I claimed that every family is a kingdom with its own culture and language. It only took the annual debates over which grandmother’s stuffing recipe should be used for the Thanksgiving turkey to convince me. For this reason, I’ve always thought that intercultural relationships have one important, yet terribly [...]
Who should be dealing with the sponsoring of online conversations?
A sponsored online conversation is loosely defined as ‘the practice of paying a blogger to post about your brand’.
This is how Bateman Group’s Bill Bourdon begins a post in which he argues with what appear to me to be solid arguments that, while it is true that this practice should be considered as paid media [...]
Information overload: a public relator’s risk, but also an opportunity….
In a report here from an Iabc conference last February in Lugano I suggested a thorough consultation of Martin Eppler and Jeanne Mengis ‘s research paper on informaton overload as the best presentation of that conference.
I attached the paper, but was immediately warned by a Iabc Guardian that the paper was not for consultation [...]
Transforming a Fly into an Elephant: our Russian Colleagues have an Official Hymn! While CIPR in the UK grants Chartered Status to 25 professionals
Posted by Toni Muzi Falconi on December 11, 2009 · 1 Comment
….And it’s true, my friend, we can even do miracles,
create a legend; turn a fairy-tale into reality,
transform a fly into an elephant, a donkey – into a camel,
and throw the negative into the dust of a street…
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