PRSA: One good exaggeration deserves another.

Like many Americans I dont' usually watch CBS News Sunday Morning. So I didn't hear legal analyst Andrew Cohen's rant about PR people being liars.

And like most Americans I don't care what one talking head on a Sunday morning news show says about the PR industry.

TV commentators, reporters, bloggers, columnists, talk show hosts -- they make ridiculous generalizations all the time. Flacks are deceitful, lawyers are sharks, used car salespeople are sleaze, politicians pander, contractors don't show up, dentists are overpaid and CEOs are crooks.

It's a cheap way for paid pundits to make their point, even if they don't have a point except to take a cheap shot.

Which is why I'm always amazed when the Public Relations Society of America -- that's "PRSA" among us liars -- takes this stuff so personally.

In a letter and video response to CBS, PRSA's president argued that "The PRSA Code of Ethics, to which all members pledge, embodies a strict set of guidelines defining ethical and professional practice in public relations."

This is spin.  The truth is that there are plenty of PR people violating the code of ethics. They talk to reporters or publish editorials without revealing their clients. They design video news releases to make local TV news viewers think they're watching journalism. They create anonymous "consumer groups" or fake blogs.

And PRSA doesn't do too much about it.  In 2006, the association sent an email warning members to "avoid" misleading practices including front groups. The big PR agencies that prompted the advisory because they'd been outed in the national press weren't mentioned, much less admonished.

This was Cohen's ham-fisted but somewhat valid point in the first place.

Not all PR people are liars. But PRSA exaggerated the industry's integrity in response to an exaggeration about its deceitfulness.

You'd think PR people would know better.
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