As it has done before, Public Relations Society of America issued another pretentious missive condemning unscrupulous flackery:
Over the last few months, there have been several news accounts of promotional tactics that signal a common thread of malpractice under the Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) Code of Ethics and PRSA Professional Standards Advisories (PSA). … PRSA states categorically that misrepresenting the nature of editorial content or intentionally failing to clearly reveal the source of message contents is unethical.
PRSA’s latest reprimand won’t change a thing. That’s because it doesn’t name, much less admonish, the companies and agencies whose bad behavior was made public in news reports.
PRSA sent out a similarly mealymouthed email last year, warning all members to “avoid misleading practices” like the front groups it was referring to but wouldn’t actually divulge. That was followed by an open letter to presidential candidates Obama and McCain demanding they agree to follow PRSA’s code of ethics. Both campaigns ignored it.
You have to wonder why PRSA even bothers.
For all its authoritative posturing -- the phrase “malpractice under the PRSA code” is downright laughable – statements like this only reinforce the association's growing irrelevance within the multi-faceted, multi-billion dollar influence industry.
Pretty much nobody cares what PRSA has to say about it. Not the pros, and certainly not the charlatans.
And things will stay that way until PRSA becomes more than just another big-talk trade group without the courage to act on its convictions.
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- O'Dwyer's PR Blog | PRSA's Meaningless Condemnation
