Yesterday, the Public Relations Society of America Advocacy Committee issued an statement about paid media endorsements, such as the one purported to have been made to Audrey Lewis (a freelance writer whose articles appeared in The Birmingham Times) by Richard M. Scrushy, the former chief executive of HealthSouth, through her public relations firm the Lewis Group. It says, among other things that: PRSA strongly objects to any paid endorsement that is not fully disclosed as such and is presented as objective news coverage. Such practices are clearly contrary to the PRSA Member Code of Ethics, which requires that public relations professionals read more...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Tongue Firmly Incheek, if-you-agree-or-disagree-leave-a-comment-at-the-end-of-diatribe (San Antonio, TX) January 24, 2006 - Let’s face it, journalists hate press releases but see them as a necessary evil. In that spirit, we would like to announce the widely speculated demise (almost) of the press release. Instead, companies will speak directly to the customer and bypass the “traditional” media. No matter that research shows that consumers find the message more credible when received through a third-party, such as a media organization. Or that most bloggers and other Social Media rely heavily on reporters read more...

Cliff Arnell, a health psychologist specializing in confidence building and stress management at the University of Cardiff in Wales, UK, has once again scored major international coverage with his formula explaining why today is the gloomiest day of 2006. According to the Boston Globe, the read more...

Starting today, the Daily Dog is now covering us! The Blog Run will cover PR Bloggers -- 330 strong and growing. We are a big family, and the Dog plans to get to know us all and pass on the most interesting things that we say to those in the PR community that are looking for a cliffs note version. In the first installment they covered posts by Tech PR Gems, Media Orchard, read more...

People like disclosure. They like to know who they are talking to and why a recommendation is being made. Confirming this "gut" instinct felt by most communicatiors is a new Word of Mouth Communications study released by Walter Carl, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University in his blog this week. The study was done in partnership with BzzAgent, Inc., a word-of-mouth marketing organization that recruits read more...