Latest News Articles
In a World Awash in Ethical Challenges, September is #PRethics Month
While ethics in public relations is and should be, without question, a year-round priority and endeavor for all PR industry leaders, agencies, and practitioners, we traditionally set the spotlight on ethics in the month of September. Please join The #PRethicsCommunity on the LinkedIn platform, which – as newly launched only in recent weeks – is…
Has UK Suppressed Free Speech via Bait-and-Switch? Are PR Folks OK with It?
Has the United Kingdom launched a tragic descent down a free-speech-suppression slippery slope, from which freedom-loving UK citizens may never recover? If elected to the White House, would the Kamala Harris Administration seek to adopt similar “internet troll” incarceration powers in the US as Labour’s UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer now wields, with seeming impunity?…
PRovoke: Biden Beats Putin as Worst World Leader Communicator
The global PR trade press has spoken. Or at least one of them has. PR trade publication PRovoke Media – living up to its name – has awarded the booby prize to U.S. President Joe Biden as the “worst communicator among the world’s leaders,” beating out prior perennial favorite, Vladimir Putin. Let that sink in.…
New PR Ethics (#PRethics) Community Launches on LinkedIn
Strategic communicators who work in public relations — as well as other professionals, academicians, and students who seek to learn more about ethical PR — can join The #PRethics Community on the LinkedIn professional social media platform. The #PRethics Community is a gathering place for public relations (PR) and communication professionals, leaders, academicians / researchers,…
Fraud? Secret 2021 Membership Data Now Reveal PRSA’s Disinformation
In December 2021, PRSA only had 15,652 regular members, not “more than 30,000 members” as falsely promoted on PRSA’s social media. Fraud?
PRNEWS Trophy to PRSA CEO Fuels PR Society’s Disinformation Machine
While gaslighting the PR industry with undeserved accolades to PRSA’s over-compensated exec staff, PRSA conceals its actual CEO job-performance data.
PRSA So-Called “Clean Audit” Conflicts Reported to U.S. PCAOB
Public comments to the PCAOB discuss PRSA’s audit and conflict of interest issues overseen by PRSA’s CFO (Global Alliance’s Treasurer).
Want PR Industry “Mental Wellness”? Then Fight for Fair Pricing of PR Labor
The PR industry’s long-running pricing problem is arguably connected at the hip to its workforce crisis in mental health.
Syracuse PR Students Get Advice from PR Guy Later Arrested at Syracuse
Syracuse’s Newhouse School sent PR students for career advice from 5W’s ethics-embattled Ronn Torossian. Months later, Syracuse arrested him.
U of Florida’s Ben Sasse Takes Higher-Ed Flimflam Out to the Woodshed
UF President Ben Sasse used strong, clear communication + policy that served to prevent campus violence. Other leaders should take note.
200 PR Students and Profs Can Access Free Online AMEC Summit Passes
Elizabeth West — Mary Beth West’s daughter, who is a rising senior at the University of South Carolina — makes the case for students to attend the 2024 AMEC Global Summit in Bulgaria with one of 200 free online passes.
2024 PRO PR Conference in Belgrade Highlights Leadership and Ethics
The 2024 PRO PR Conference in Belgrade, Serbia, brought together public relations global leaders, unified in PR ethics and best practice.
PR Pros to Gain Valuable Insights During SPJ Ethics Week, April 15-19
The PR industry can learn a lot from journalism’s own ethics code as well as challenges faced in today’s newsrooms.
In the Room Where it Happened: PRSA and the Case of the “Missing” Fellows
PRSA’s College of Fellows is in trouble, with one-third of its members M.I.A. But given years of such bad history, who can blame defectors?
5 Critical Gaps in PRSA’s (Very) Outdated PR Ethics Code
With massive bylaw / compliance conflicts, PRSA’s unenforced Code of Ethics hasn’t been updated since Bill Clinton was POTUS.
Legacy in the Face of Loss: The Catharsis of Philanthropic Memorials
Philanthropy can be the highest form of communication in coming to terms with sadness, confusion, and even anger, in the face of loss.
CPRE Reports Ethical Competency Shortfalls for PR Grads / New Pros
The Commission on Public Relations Education (CPRE) reports ethical competency shortfalls of PR graduates / new professionals. But are PR ethics codes partially to blame?
Postcard from Paris: EBEF ’24 Shines for Evidence-Based Ethics in City of Light
Trust cannot exist without evidence-based ethics. The 2024 European Business Ethics Forum illuminated this fact well in the City of Light.
2024 European Business Ethics Forum to Include Insights on Strategic Comms
To advance ethics in strategic communication, it’s critical to reach boardroom and c-suite leaderships well outside the PR industry.
Are Americans “Over It!” with News? And To What End This Election Year?
In matters of perceived media bias, have some traditional news sources pushed Americans to the point where they no longer care?
There’s a Word for PRSA Falsifying its APR+M Pentagon MOU: Fraud
For more than a decade, PRSA claimed to have a legitimate “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) with the U.S. Dept. of Defense. They were lying.
P.R. Popcorn Alert: “I Hate Math!” Anti-Mantra Cracks Under PRSA’s $5 Mill Error
In 2016, PRSA’s Chairman declared the words “I hate math!” as PR anathema. Now, in 2024, PRSA’s new $5 million balance sheet discrepancy underscores its corruption.
2024: Praying Farewell to the Pandemic Boomerang
It’s 2024, and not everyone is OK. Let’s rethink what “coping” means and what it requires… including for leaders.
5 Revelations from DEI-Focused PRSA Foundation’s Latest IRS Tax Filing
With a $300,000 loss at the Diversity Action Alliance, PRSA members deserve to know what their own Foundation “charity” is really doing on DEI.
A Well-Deserved Message to Anti-Semitic Academia: “Job. No-Keep.”
In light of Fareed Zakaria’s brilliant CNN editorial taking U.S. academia to task, you can’t “PR” anti-Semitism. So let’s not say stuff that suggests one can, or, much less, should.
New ICCO PR World Report Includes North American Market Insights
The North American PR agency sector faces a slew of competing priorities — with budgets unequal to client demands.
Blount County’s Long Community Nightmare is Over
It should never be this difficult or expensive to dismiss an utterly toxic individual who’s arguably driving a desperately needed community healthcare resource into the ground.
Pellissippi State: High Schools Fuel Diverse PR / Comms Workforce Pipeline
A new program in East Tennessee is helping diverse high school students gain career pathways into PR, media, and communications careers. Industry partners are welcomed to join!
Grappling for AI Relevancy, BEPS is Blasé to PRSA’s Tech and Financial Violations
PRSA’s AI white paper is awash in “do as we say, not as we do” hypocrisies, neglecting disclosure of many recent PRSA violations of member trust.
Remembering Hickory Construction’s Chuck Alexander
In 15 years of operating my PR firm in Blount County, one of my favorite clients was Hickory Construction… and alongside Hickory’s Pinnell Family, two of my favorite pillars of the Blount County / Greater Knoxville community have always been Hickory Co-founder Chuck Alexander and his wife Donna. In hearing the news of Chuck’s passing,…
Are the PRSA Foundation’s Race-Based Scholarships Unconstitutional?
The PRSA Foundation faces potential legal and PR problems with the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision on race-based academic preferences.
Tech-Hub Snub: Biden’s Tennessee Pass Raises Qs of Awards Methodology
Were taxpayer-funded Biden Administration Tech Hub awards based on pure proposal merit… or a Decision ’24 strategy?
What a Difference a Year Makes in Blount Memorial Land
“It’s been 13 months since I first called publicly for more than zero women to serve on my community’s hospital board.” – @marybethwest
PRSA-NY to Jewish Community: #SorryNotSorry, We’re No Longer Sorry
In a self-made PR crisis of moral reversal, PRSA New York apologizes with an anti-Israel statement days after its pro-Israel statement.
World Mental Health Day 2023 (10 Oct) Deserves Urgent PR Industry Attention
October 10, 2023 will mark World Mental Health Day, and if there is any industry more ripe for taking notice and – more importantly – taking action toward better outcomes, it’s the public relations (PR) sector. Two years ago, executive leaderships of the two largest PR member associations in the U.K. – which historically have…
New PR Ethics Code Research Reveals Rampantly Outdated & Undated Codes
If a public relations (PR) ethics code hasn’t been meaningfully updated since before the dawn of social media and is widely locked in a myopic, media-relations-centric time-warp, then it’s missing massive chunks of essential treatment of contemporary issues.
PRSA Assembly Preview: PR Society Finances Get Curious-er and Curious-er
Amid millions in financial losses for years, PRSA National Board leadership and executive staff have not complied with New York State Not-for-Profit Corporation Law on disclosures to Assembly delegates.
Carole Anne Coleman was Beautiful, Inside and Out
“What I found weren’t answers, though… just evidence-upon-evidence that Carole Anne wanted to project goodness and kindness onto the world…”
The #PRethics of Being Asked to Destroy Evidence
Destroying data at a management team’s command can have massive ethics and legal consequences for the unwitting PR practitioner.
In “Ethics” Parlance, When is the Word “Code” an Utter Misnomer?
This #PRethics Month (Sept. 2023), the PR industry is challenged to consider a simple question: When is an ethics “code” not a “code” at all?… But rather, a “list of nice things to consider”? Public relations is a line of work in which words matter. In fact, if this industry is known at all, it’s…