CBS Executive Vice President for Communications at CBS News Gil "Stanly Bing" Schwartz put together a rebuttal to Andrew Cohen's piece about PR Flacks. It is entertaining, but I am not so sure that his claim about secondary lies being less problematic than primary lies rings true. He contends PR people generally never lie except when lied to by their clients. Sometimes this happens, but I am not sure that it leaves us less responsible for those lies and our dogged defense of them. He makes a point that public relations and journalism are two sides read more...
Fair Use: Hey, That Isn’t Fair! Free Legal Guidance for Bloggers
One of the many issues that came up at Blog Potomac last Friday was that of fair use and copyright. Both from the point of view of the communication professional and also from the point of view of the creators of content. It couldn't have come at a better time as his very issue is being debated between bloggers and the Associated Press right now. There is a fantastic article in the New York Times written by Saul Hansell that lays out the APs concerns and also covers the bloggers reaction to those read more...
Creating an Ethical Roadmap: Exploring the Line Between Creativity and Duplicity
Over the past week, the PR profession has been called into question based on some dubious examples of obfuscation and spin. While Scott McClellan's new book has caused most of the firestorm, there also was a ruling that appointees in the public affairs office of NASA knowingly distorted communication about climate change findings. It read more...
Is PR Paid to Lie? The Two Paradigms of Public Relations
The pundits and the PR community are all sharpening their pencils and will be read more...
Brainstorm: What Should Guide Online Ethics for the Community and the Corporation?
On June 13, I have been asked to lead a discussion at Blog Potomac in the D.C. area about ethics in an online world. I wanted to start the discussion early and test some questions that I hope to put to the Blog Potomac crowd. I started with this question on Twitter, a microblogging platform that allows people to quickly brainstorm with their first impressions:
- kamichat What are the ethics of an anything goes Internet world? How far is too far in your opinion?