Jack
O'Dwyer is editor-in-chief of the J.R. O'Dwyer publications.
He can be reached at jack@
odwyerpr.com
June 10, 2008
PR SOCIETY HITS CBS WITH ILLOGICAL BLASTS
PR Society CEO Jeff Julin is continuing his illogical attack on CBS broadcaster Andrew Cohen by posting a nearly four-minute denunciation of Cohen on YouTube and e-mailing the 22,000 members that he has done so.
There are several problems with this, including the fact that the PRS “Code” that Julin keeps citing is inoperable. It has no enforcement mechanism, which is like having a car without wheels.
In addition, PRS is a chronic liar itself. It misinforms members about its finances year after year and withholds key information from members (move of h.q. downtown, suspending the members’ directory, and currently, giving no hint of how the bylaws are being re-written).
PRS has just released (to members who pay $3 for it) the 2007 audit which claims that the national conference last year netted $569,901, which we say is palpably false and misleading.
It claims that staff costs on the conference were only $240,039 or 4.67% of total staff costs of $5,135,248.
This flies in the face of reality because conference work involves upwards of 200 speakers, a 98-page conference program, all sorts of logistical arrangements, and on-site attendance by more than 35 staffers.
Past presidents and treasurers of PRS assure us that conference work, involving plans for meetings as far as five years in advance, occupies about half the staff, including many senior staffers, about half of its time. The past officers estimate true staff costs on the conference approach $2M yearly.
Since members think the conference (attended by about 4% of members) makes so much money, it sits quietly by while staff and leaders suspend the printed directory of members.
The new audit continues PRS’s unusual policy of booking dues as cash, thereby boosting its “unrestricted net assets” by about $2.5M to $3.48M. The AMA, ABA, IABC, ASAE and most other associations do not do this. It gives a misleading picture of net assets.
Code Lacks Enforcement
Julin is leading with his chin because, without any enforcement capability, the PRS code is worthless.
Sprinkled among the insults to Cohen posted by PRS members was this from one blogger: “You can shout to the high heavens about adhering to a code but without inspection and enforcement it is a hollow claim.”
“Codes for bridges and high buildings are worthless without an inspection system,” he added.
As a tragic illustration of this observation, New York has had two recent fatal crane accidents caused by lack of proper inspections.
The New York Times said the Dept. of Buildings “has long been plagued by corruption” and that the inspection staff is “shorthanded” and “underpaid.”
Arrested on a charge of taking bribes to allow cranes to pass inspection last week was the acting chief inspector.
While the charges are not connected to the fatal accidents, they are an indication of corruption.
But at least there is an inspection system in the Buildings Dept. and punishments for those who don’t follow it.
PRS Abandoned Old Code
PRS abandoned any punishments for transgressors in 1999, the same year that a member charged the entire board with violating five code articles for instituting a boycott against the O’Dwyer Co.
Rather than let the charges be heard by a judicial panel, as required by PRS bylaws, the board destructed the entire code and wrote a new one at the cost of $197,000. It was highly similar to the old code except that the teeth had been removed.
The current board also has a boycott against the O’Dwyer Co., refusing to answer any questions, blocking the O’Dwyer PR director from joining the Society, and refusing to take ads for O’Dwyer’s Directory of PR Firms. PRS cannot cite any inaccuracies in O’Dwyer’s reporting on PRS.
Another e-mail said Cohen only described what “at least 90% of Americans” believe about PR and that the chorus of complaints had the “usual fact-reversing rhetoric of PR people.”
Cohen Withdrew Blanket Attack
At least nine recent books on PR contain 'spin' in their titles.
Another fallacious part of the Julin attack is the repeated claim that Cohen is blasting “all” PR professionals, is using a “broad brush” and is attacking the PR profession in “its entirety.”
This is the “straw man” approach whereby a debater attacks something that is susceptible to attack only it doesn’t exist.
Cohen, in an apology no doubt demanded by his bosses at CBS, withdrew a comparison of PR people with burglars but also said: “I am sure there are honest and accurate PR people just as there are (somewhere, I suppose) honest journalists and lawyers…”
Cohen pointed out he was generalizing in speaking about PR in connection with former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s book.
Hunter/Coach Class Was Not Truthful
As for PRS members always telling the truth, we would point to the recent Hunter/Coach debacle in which a PR class, using materials supplied by Paul Werth Assocs., headed by PRS member Sandra Harbrecht, created a campus-wide PR program that included a fake website, fake personality, and fake theft of a non-existent Coach handbag.
Hunter faculty, obtaining a 34-page “professor’s kit” prepared by Werth, said it imposed a “narrow and biased perspective in the classroom” and that “students were not presented with a scholarly analysis of the counterfeit market.”
What Werth prepared was good promotion but far from what the PRS code promises—“the highest standards of accuracy and truth.”
This is like a football team promising to practice the “highest standards of politeness and etiquette.” Players can be polite but that is not mostly what goes on.
A lot of what PR does is promotion and this can be turned into useful information when melded with reporting or scholarship.
It’s about time PRS took a realistic view of the industry and got down off its high horse.
PRS H.Q. Light on PR Pros
There is only one working PR pro at PRS among a staff of nearly 60—Joe DeRupo, who joined last fall and who was not even a member. Five PR pros have quit the Society since 1995 and they didn’t wait for someone to fill their shoes. Two quit in front of the national conference.
At the ABA you’ll find nearly 100 lawyers, at the AMA more than 40 doctors and at the AAAA about 15 career ad people. PR pros are banned from their own house because of fierce regional (“I-hate-New York”) politics. No New Yorkers are on the 19-member board, either. They refuse to serve.
Elected PRS leaders do not appear to have either sufficient time or sufficient skill to do a worthwhile “PR for PR” program.
Instead of a combative policy that smacks of a legal rather than a PR culture, Julin and CEO-elect Mike Cherenson should visit Cohen and other CBS newspeople, asking their experiences with PR. Do PR pros return calls promptly, provide explanations and documents, answer their own phones, make CEOs available, provide news tips, stories they have read, make visits to newspeople?
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Responses:
LR (6/10):
In this discussion of the internecine warfare at PRS, I am reminded of the old adage: "The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low." What possible difference can it make what PRS does or doesn't do?
Joe Honick, GMA Intenational Ltd responds (6/11):
LR is correct and not so correct: fact is PRS has a name, a label and recognition to whatever constitutes the "outside world" and therefore its public expressions get picked up ... however foolish they may be. So it really is important to ride herd on them as Jack does.