The sports world has accepted the modern marvel of "super slo-mo replay" even though it has exposed embarrassing mistakes in officiating.
Baseball is resisting the replay even as millions watch players called out who are safe (or vice versa), foul balls called fair and balls and strikes miscalled.
Probably the worst call was in a Yankee/Angels game where two Yankees were standing near third base, both were tagged out, but the umpire only called one out.
Football, tennis and other sports bow to replays from multiple angles. Their officiators take the hit. Interest in sports has surged, we believe, partly because of the bonanza of new information available — democratically — to fans as well as players and officials.
Image via FOX |
But when we turn to the PR Society, we find a baseball-like resistance to technology.
Only a small fraction of the communicating power of the PRS website is used.
Officials, fearing embarrassment, block the use of technology.
Transcript Is Like Slo-Mo Replay
The equivalent of slo-mo replay is the word-for-word transcript of a proceeding that can be carefully examined. It works well with the "live" or nearly live video or audiocast of an event.
PRS chair Mike Cherenson told a bylaws teleconference Oct. 23 that audiocasting the Assembly Nov. 7 would be "near impossible, technologically challenging."
This is the same Cherenson who told the "For Immediate Release" webcast in late 2008 that the Assembly that year was open because "all members" were invited to it.
He also says that organizations should "take ownership of their mistakes" and "apologize."
Here's a chance for him to live up to his own words. More properly the somnolent board should rouse itself from its torpor and force him to do that. If PRS blocks live or near-live broadcasting of the historic Assembly Nov. 7 it will be on the heads of board members who are supposed to be running things.
"Let Them Eat Cake"
Cherenson is suggesting that delegates spread the word of what is happening at the Assembly via Twitter and Facebook.
Michael Cherenson |
This is the equivalent of Marie Antoinette telling the French people to "eat cake."
This website has shown how easy it is to record something and then post it shortly thereafter on a website. Three bylaws re-write teleconferences were posted here that should have been on the main PRS website and for which transcripts should have been provided.
The board should also cancel the planned usual hour-and-a-half lunch break and instead arrange for box lunches at the tables of the delegates.
An open-ended Assembly is now planned with no "hard ending" at 5:30 p.m. Rickey says the meeting will go on as long as needed. Then don't waste 1:30 minutes on the lunch break. Last year this lasted 1:42 since it takes time to reassembly more than 250 people.
If proxies are allowed at the Assembly, it will be an abomination that is on the heads of the board. Cherenson should realize what he said when he said delegates could raise the "voices" in the Assembly via proxies. Proxy forms do not talk and more importantly, they don't listen.
PRS unveiled a new website this week and the search capability is a big improvement over what was previously there. However, we couldn't find our favorite essay, Prof. Tim Penning saying that "Truth and falsehood must grapple." Its absence raises the suspicion that archives are being censored.
When they put this essay up, we'll think better of the new PRS website.
Philadelphia Picked (Again) for Conference
Inexplicable (except for "politics"), is the choice of Philadelphia for the national conference in 2013 although the conference was just there in 2007. This was announced in the July 24 board minutes which were published Oct. 24 — two months later.
Snubbed again is New York, where the 2004 conference drew a record 4,000. The previous New York visit was in 1990 — 14 years earlier.
Staff and the non-New Yorkers who run PRS are at it again.
Staff does not want New York because there is then no week or more of expense account living by the 35 and more staffers who attend the conference. There is no need for 35 to go. Conferences were just as big in the 1970s when 5-6 staffers would go and local volunteers would be used.
Other conference locations revealed in the minutes are Orlando for 2011 and San Francisco for 2012.
Murray Gets Contract; Don't Ask, Don't Tell
The other shocker is the last item in the minutes given here in its entirety: "Motion: Mr. (Jim) Haynes moved and Mr. (Phil) Tate seconded approval of Mr. (Bill) Murray's employment contract. Motion passed."
What contract? For how long? For how much?
The Assembly, which elects the board and officers and therefore sits over the board (no matter what the board may say) should "turn tail" Nov. 7 and demand from Murray and the board the details of the contract.
It is he and the board who report to the Assembly and not the opposite. Under Federal law, details of Murray's contract are supposed to be available to members.
The skimpy two-page report, two months after the fact, is in sharp contrast to the extensive report that was posted on Aug. 6, 2004 about the board meeting two weeks previously.
Board reports were much more extensive and much more timely posted in previous years.
Parliamentary websites advise that revisions of bylaws be done in a series of meetings and definitely not at a regular meeting which usually has other business to consider. PRS leaders have ignored such advice.
Assembly Packed Like Can of Sardines
If passed, the Assembly will no longer be itself but a mere extension of management—packed with 17 national directors, 19 section heads, 10 district heads, more than 25 national committee heads (although more could be named), and an unlimited number of new delegates since the board could "establish additional criteria for delegates."
Oddly, perhaps madly, the board wants the new "Leadership Assembly" to become a group of advocates who pursue industry issues while at the same time reducing Assembly terms to one year from three and continuing the bylaw that calls for one Assembly meeting a year.
How could a group that turns over 100% each year and only meets once a year decide anything?!
We're worried that the draconian bylaws will pass because only three of the ten districts are opposing management—Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and North Pacific.
Where is New York in this battle? Nowhere. Former chief critic of PRS Art Stevens, who had urged that the conference be in New York every third year, was on the bylaws committee and fully supports its recommendations. The New York board unanimously supports Stevens in his vow to vote on the bylaws he helped propose. New York lists nine delegates.
The bylaws committee was fatally compromised because 10 of the 11 members were APR and only 20% of members are.
This brings to mind another Cherenson saying: "We can't have 20% of the members telling the other 80% how we're going to govern this organization…we have to make it more democratic, more successful" (Sept. 10 teleconference). If only he would put those words into action.
Chair of the Tri-State district is Doug Fenichel of PRS/New Jersey, an ardent supporter of APR who conducted the first ever teleconference of APRs in September 2008. We feel he will be supportive of national's goals.
Lynn Appelbaum, PR professor at CCNY who reluctantly joined the board last year (after two nomcom deadlines had passed) is not to be found. A message on her phone says she is "on sabbatical" until December.
Trohan Nixes Audiocasting
Blowing any claims to objectivity, parliamentarian Colette Trohan last week ardently supported Cherenson in arguing against "live" or "near live" reporting on the Assembly.
She's afraid of the "Judge Ito effect," referring to Judge Lance Ito who dragged out the O.J. Simpson trial for nearly a year and was accused of playing to the cameras.
Colette Trohan |
If Trohan wants to take sides like that she has no business also serving as parliamentarian and should withdraw.
Members have every right to hear every word spoken in the Assembly and know all the vote totals. They should also know how the individual delegates voted each time and particularly who voted what proxies and how they were voted. That would be democracy. This could be posted 15 minutes or a half hour after the fact.
Proceedings of the U.S. House and Senate are videocast daily and archived for all to see.
As for delegates being distracted by knowledge they're being audiotaped, they're supposed to be "professional communicators" who can handle this.
The use of proxies would be a legislative atrocity and we hope a bylaw amendment against them by delegates Patt Reed and Mary Haban of Tampa Bay will be successful.
A group of seniors, calling themselves "True Friends of the Society," have e-mailed to the 109 chapter presidents a set of 11 "bylaws contradictions."
Big Chapters Tank, Led by New York
That the ten biggest chapters are tanking and making bed with national is indicated by the failure of any of their presidents to show up for any of the eight bylaws teleconferences.
Sitting on the sidelines, as usual, are the Fellows, the Past Presidents Society, and the entire academic community.
The silence of the chapter leaders, almost all of whom have enjoyed the PRS-paid weekend in New York "Leadership Rally," is deafening.
Not only have they not participated in any of the calls, but their chapter websites are bereft of any discussion of the bylaws and certainly no attempt to poll chapter members on the dozen or so major changes sought.
The Minnesota chapter has the most bylaws materials but they consist mostly of statements from national on how the proposed bylaws would make PRS "inclusive," "open," "member-driven," "more democratic" and be "strategic" and have "trend-setting leaders."
Also most probably going along with the board will be the 14 delegates of National Capital. That chapter, a stronghold of APR, led the fight against Central Michigan's 2006 proposal to model PRS governance after that of the American Medical and American Bar Assns.
We have offered NCC leaders free temporary access to our website so all nearly 1,400 members could hear the six bylaws teleconferences. Leaders showed little interest, only saying they would discuss it this Friday.
Georgia, Los Angeles and Puget Sound are other top ten chapters noted for their loyalty to national.
Pockets of resistance to the proposed bylaws are in Florida and the Northeast. Some New York chapter members are fighting the proposals but appear to have no support among the New York delegates or New York board.
Chapter Presidents Listed
The ten biggest chapters represent about 6,400 members and will send 67 delegates to the Assembly (either in person or by proxy).
Chapters and their presidents are:
--National Capital, with nearly 1,400 members and 14 delegates, chapter president Barbara Burfeind, strategic communications director, Defense Visual Information.
--Georgia, with 850+ members and nine delegates, chapter president Michael Neumeier, Arketi Group.
--New York City, with 850 members in its area and listing nine delegates, chapter president Deborah Radman, senior VP and director, C-KPR.
--Chicago, with "nearly 500" members, listing five delegates, president, Scott Farrell, president, global corporate communications, GolinHarris.
--Los Angeles, 450 members, five delegates, president Rita Tateel, The Celebrity Source.
--Colorado, 450 members, five delegates, president, Gina Seamans, JohnstonWells PR.
--Detroit, 550 members, six delegates, president, Kimberly Anne Skeltis, SVP, Strat@Comm.
--Minnesota, 450 members, five delegates, president, Janice Hennings, communications director, Minnesota Hospital Assn.
--Houston, 450 members, five delegates, president, Terri Larson, program manager, U.S. PA, Enbridge Energy Co.
--Puget Sound, 450 members, four delegates, president, Linda Farmer, communications officer, City of Federal Way.
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