Public Relations
« Previous EntriesOrwellian Olympiad (II): Ministry of Truth Revises Gymnast’s Past and Gets Caught… THIS TIME
Thursday, August 14th, 2008Following up on last week’s post on George Orwell’s 1984…
The latest Olympic development is not just that the Chinese government falsified a gymnast’s birth date on her passport, but that they went back and altered PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED NEWSPAPER REPORTS about her age!!
Columnist/Blogger David Flumenbaum has posted copies of an article from the China Daily that […]
Orwellian Olympic PR Deception: Are We Too Dumbed Down to Care?
Monday, August 11th, 2008Stuck for nearly half a day in an airport this weekend, I was browsing the itty-bitty bookstore and stumbled on George Orwell’s 1984. If you haven’t read it in a while, I’d highly recommend it.
We are so inured to the machinations of politicians, business leaders, spin doctors, and even the media that we tend to […]
BS of the Month Award: Gray Lady Calls Out Freddie Mac CEO Syron for Being Two-Face
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008As the new movie The Dark Knight is breaking box office records and capturing the popular imagination, it’s only fitting to riff on the theme for this month’s award… and yes, it’s only the 5th of the month, but I can’t imagine that anyone will top this one in the next few weks (political surrogates […]
Cock-a-Doodle-Doo-Doo: PR’s Secondary Lies and Tacit Approvals are Lies All the Same
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
Less than two weeks ago, International Olympics Committee (IOC) head Jacques Rogge said:
“For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet.” (AFP)
According to Reuters, about two weeks ago Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain said:
“Right now, we […]
Press Releases We’d Love To See!!… “Scientology Acquires Kabbalah to Form World’s Most Famous Secret Religion”
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE…
Los Angeles, CA – July 9, 2008: The Church of Scientology announced today that it has agreed to acquire The Kabbalah Centre in a “merger of equals” to create the world’s largest, most powerful, most famous double-super-secret religion.
The name of the combined religion will be The Scientific Unified Church of Kabbalalology – abbreviated […]
PRSA Gets it Wrong Again: CBS Rant Against PR Wasn’t an Attack, It Was an Obituary
Monday, June 2nd, 2008What to make of this latest broadside against PR — by CBS news analyst Andrew Cohen… ? In which he says:
The reason companies or governments hire oodles of PR people is because PR people are trained to be slickly untruthful or half-truthful. Misinformation and disinformation are the coin of the realm.
Oh there’s sooooo much. Too […]
Jim Abernathy Gives China a Big Sloppy Kiss, Gives PR a BIG BLACK EYE
Monday, May 19th, 2008Just when you thought the PR profession could get no more immoral, unscrupulous, or just plain asinine, along comes Jim Abernathy to take us down to a whole new low.
O’Dwyer’s re-ran quotes of Abernathy’s interview with Business Week about how to deal with China’s PR woes surrounding Tibet, and its overshadowing of the Olympics.
Ever the […]
JetBlue In The Face (Part II): Exasperation and the REAL Difference Between Marketing and PR
Thursday, May 15th, 2008I’ve still been noodling on the whole JetBlue post from yesterday and I think this event is a pretty good teaching moment for those who still can’t tell the difference between PR and marketing — as well as those executives who treat PR (and PR people) as a hassle without value. (And for PR students […]
JetBlue In The Face: Holding Our Breath Waiting for Some Smart PR
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008OK so JetBlue has managed to dive head first into another vat of boiling passenger resentment. But after the Arabic t-shirt fiasco, and the O’Reilly fiasco, and the 25-hour FtLauderdale-to-NYC flight fiasco, and on and on… you’d think that their PR team would be a little better prepared this time around.
Certainly better prepared than to […]
Bear Stearns CEO Wins BS of the Month Award: Can One Authentically Claim to be a Victim of Suicide?
Sunday, March 30th, 2008BUT FIRST… THE RUNNERS UP…
Second Runner Up… Harper Collins’ Children, Birthed by Stepford Wives
When criticized recently for product placements in children’s books, Susan Katz, publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books, responded:
“If you look at Web sites, general media or television, corporate sponsorship or some sort of advertising is totally embedded in the world that tweens live […]