Bill Huey, Strategic Communications, Atlanta (6/02):
Considering that Cohen also called Thomas Jefferson a liar, I don't think need worry much about his opinion.
A distinction exists, however, between what PR people do in the ordinary course of business and what political people do. I don't consider the position of press secretary a PR job at all. It's a political job whose primary responsibility is dealing with the press, day by tedious day. McClellan probably wouldn't have risen as high as he did if he hadn't been one of the original Bushies on the wagon train from Texas.
When he was no longer useful to Rove, Cheney, et. al. (remember al?) they threw him under the wheels.
Veep (6/02):
So McClellan betrays the trust of his boss and makes all PR professionals look bad, and our benevolent trade group goes after a talking-head lawyer. Is this real?
Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (6/02):
After having watched scores of trial over the years and listened to legal defenses of some very strange and culpable people, I think Mr. Cohen should also read last week's piece on ethics that are of concern to most in the business...but unfortunately not all. Cohen's broadbrush indictments, while the remarks can be applied in certain cases, does not do his own profession's history a lot of good, nor does it constructively address some problems our own field suffers. He is, after all, a 'mouthpiece' as well, the same as the attorneys who managed to "restate" the circumstances of Rush Limbaugh's dope incidents and the more classic case of OJ Simpson. Glass houses are available all over the places and should be treated as the warnings indicated.
Very old, very frustrated Fellow (6/02):
The McClellan story broke early last week. The PR Society sat on its hands until the overt, straightforward attack came -- and then scrambled (and good for them to do it so quickly, considering their bureaucracy) to get a statement out. It was not well written, but at least it's something.
The broader questions for members who look to the Society to represent their profession -- why wasn't the association out there well ahead of this attack, noting that McClellan's actions as he has now confessed them should not be condoned, that he is not a member of the Society, and that he does not subscribe to its Code.
Had the ad agency people, academics and solo consultants who now dominate the Board gotten their act together and gotten that statement out early, it would have been hard for Cohen to take a potshot at the Society. He still would have gone after PR people, but they might have averted the Society and Code references.
Of course the Society right now has no VP for PR (a search is underway, APR desired), and only one senior corporate PR person on the board, so it's hard to see where powerful leadership could have come from on this one. Who knows what the advocacy team, headed by "senior counselor" Beth West, a solo consultant, was doing?
And with a chief staff officer, whatever the title is these days, having no PR background, there's no leadership coming from that quarter, either.
But again, one would have thought that the Society could have used this proactively as a powerful platform to differentiate between spokesfaces who merely mouth what they're told to, and true PR people who sit with the decision-makers, contribute their opinions, and have the option to say "Stop, this is wrong," and then quit if they aren't listened to.
Scott McClellan was never a PR professional and the association should have been out in front with that message before letting our profession get tarred, once again.
What do our dues go for, if not for that? Kerryn King, Betsy Plank, Pat Jackson, Kathy Lewton, Joann Killeen, Reed Byrum -- they would have been all over this as soon as it happened.
PR Honcho (6/02):
A lawyer like Cohen calling PR people liars?! Is this a joke? The army of PR people employed by CBS and its parent Viacom must have really appreciated Cohen's take on their ethics.
GOPlease (6/02):
Having an employee of CBS News accuse PR of "deceipt and spin" is like the owner of a slaughterhouse accuse Barnum & Bailey of cruelty to animals. It's no wonder the American people hold the media in such low regard.
Ron Levy (6/02):
If Jeff Julin is as I hope really into upholding the highest standards, not just talking about them, it could make sense to either (a) pay Jack for the copyrighted material of Jack's that PRSA sold, or (b) come out with a statement of why Jack isn't entitled to the money, or (c) appoint a panel of academics like the brainy, moral Hunter professors to arbitrate and come up with a finding as to what settlement if any would be fair. The alternative to one of these options--or to SOME option--is to put the Society in the position of in effect saying "no comment," or "we don't agree with the accusation," neirher of which responses is not a good thing for anyone to say when accused.
Doing SOMETHING about the controversy is better than doing NOTHING much beyond pulling in one's head like a turtle and hoping it will blow over. I'm damn near aghast at Jack providing a forum for those who justify the murder by terrorists of helpless women and children in Israel, but even one who provides such a forum has a right like the rest of us to having copyrihted material not used without payment or justification.
Society members have a right to leadership that puts justice ahead of expediency as Hunter's Professor Ewen did. He also has financial pressures as all colleges do but he put integrity ahead of money and so should the Society. |