Posted on Seasoned Posts

On the licensing of public relations: the debate revamps. Where are we to go?

Richard Edelman’s recent decision to withdraw his company from the US Council of Pr Firms on the grounds that ‘we disagree with the Council on a few fundamental points’… as well as the unexpected reactivation of a public debate in the US public relations community on licensing, after many years since Eddie Bernays in the early nineties lost his attempt to convince his peers to adopt it, have provoked plenty of interest in various professional...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Italy’s search for legitimacy in Lebanon a pr stunt? Why not…

The other day, Italian Premier Romano Prodi, in saluting his young compatriots sailing off to Lebanon to form the larger part of the UN military peacekeeping force, unabashedly called this ‘an historic event’. For the first time in many years, under strong pressure from the Italian government and with a grudgingly active support from Jacques Chirac, the EU gained its first explicit leadership of a major peacekeeping effort. Many critical observers, in Italy and elsewhere,...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Anne Gregory: Public Relations can also contribute to honest debate. The case of integration and cohesion in the UK

On 24th August 2006, a landmark debate was initiated in the UK. Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary launched the government’s new Commission on Integration and Cohesion ‘to look at how to counter tensions between people of different ethnic groups and religions’. While acknowledging the economic, cultural and social contribution that migrants have brought to the UK, Kelly went on to state that ‘it is now time to engage in a new and honest debate about...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

On Jack Odwyer’s call for a new definition following Der Spiegel’s recent attack on pr

In every country, the public relations profession is being constantly and increasingly criticized by mainstream media and social critics for its buffering mode of action. Most recently it was Der Spiegel in Germany, but all one needs to do is keep a close eye on http://www.prwatch.org and most of the arguments used by our critics can be easily traced. Personally, I do not believe that a new definition, as Jack O’Dwyer seems to imply in...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

What we need now to reap the fruits of change, is a true managerial culture.

The full assumption of a mentality coupled with an appropriate language, both coherent with today’s managerial culture, are mandatory ‘conditions’ if we -as public relations professionals- are to obtain (and keep!) that legitimate seat at the table of our dominant coalitions. A seat well justified today by the relevant content of the many tasks which we are increasingly called upon to perform by the (private, public and social sector) complex organizations we work for…..

Posted on Seasoned Posts

Public Relations and Democracy: an intricate affair

Does the public relations profession hinder or enhance our democratic institutions? This question, proposed a few weeks ago in a debate format at the Annual General Meeting of UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations, has been around for a long, long time within our global community (in its professional, research and educative segments). The only possible diplomatic answer, in my view, is….

Posted on Seasoned Posts

About the economic impact of the public relations profession on society: the need for a different perspective, as public relations is a labour and not a capital intensive activity…

Until today most efforts in evaluating and measuring the economic impact of public relations in a given country have analysed public relations as an industry where demand and offer are mostly, if not solely, observed in the private sector, and have not looked at public relations as a profession increasingly performed in the public and social sectors of society.

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That post enlightement syndrome…

In a recent post about the Bled symposium on the communication of Europe, I referred to that typical syndrome of many of our clients/employers, who are so convinced to be right that if something goes wrong the fault is always to be found in the communication of a specific management policy or decision.