Should PR firms be regulated ?

[TheCoxwain]

So many industries are regulated ...

If we can have laws that prevent/limit factories from spewing noxious gases into our atmosphere...

Why cant we limit PR firms from spewing lies that are even more harmful??? (A group funded by millionaires cannot be claim to be grass roots middle class for instance)


Please dont bring the first amendment here.... Some of these campaigns are outright lies- so there should be some applicable standard which can be applied to both liberal and conservative groups ... What are the laws against false advertising??

[Warpy]

1. Truth in advertising laws might be applied.

[damntexdem]

2. All firms should be regulated.

PR firms should definitely be, particularly as they verge onlobbying, engage in identity theft and other fraudulent activities, and so on.

[JuniperLea]

5. No firm is above the law...

Law, PR, advertizing... no one is above the law.

[JuniperLea]

3. Please don't lump all PR firms together...

There are those who assist clients in making up lies, and there are those who will only tell the truth while helping clients put their best foot forward and do the right thing.

Not all cops are bad, not all politicians are corrupt, not all PR firms are liars.

[TheCoxwain]

6. I did not .. All I am saying is that there should some law which can be used to prevent propagation

of falsehoods

[JuniperLea]

8. What politician is going to support that?

If you police truth, you must police it with everyone, right?

I'm all for shining a light on lies wherever they are, and from whomever they are spewed.

[madinmaryland]

4. How do you regulate free speech. I know alot of us consider

much of what they say to be obscene, but unless their is actual defamation or libel, then there is not much that can be done. Unfortunately, free speech allows people to spew all the lies they can.

[TheCoxwain]

7. So is that why I can sell a hair cream that will grow hair even if I know it wont.

are you really ok with it??


Dont you want laws against it?

[JuniperLea]

10. There are already laws against false advertizing...

?

[madinmaryland]

13. Are you now referring to Truth in Advertising?

Using your example, anyone is free to sell a product that they claim will cure something. On the other hand, there should be a disclaimer that the product has not been tested by the FDA or whatever the applicable government agency is. (I think this may be a law)

Or are you referring to groups like the "Swiftboat Liars"?

[TheCoxwain]

18. I am not a lawyer ...but to me just putting a disclaimer that this product has not been

tested or approved by the FDA should not let you get away from selling snake oil ....


and in that sense a snake oil peddler and the swiftboaters are guilty of same crime .. propogating a falsehood. All I am saying that such an act should not have protections of free speech.

[madinmaryland]

21. I'm sorry, but I just disagree with what you propose.

I feel that will be taking us down the slippery slope of putting clamps on free speech. Also, who will determine what is a lie and what is not? I do NOT want to go there.

[rvablue]

9. No. Journalists should be doing their jobs and exposing these firms

and sharing the facts and truths with the public.

[JuniperLea]

11. That's a much better idea, I think... eom

[TheCoxwain]

12. so if I understand you correctly -- large scale deception ( of the sophisticated sort) should be

legally protected ..


and the only safeguard against it is the 'free' press ..( or how ever free Mr.Murdoch lets it be)

[BlooInBloo]

14. Yes. Why put a cast on your arm, when it's your leg that's broken?

[JuniperLea]

15. No, you are completely misunderstanding me... to the point of...

Putting words in my mouth. Stop it.

There are already plenty of laws. They need to be upheld, and lawbreakers need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We should be shining the white light of truth on lies, we should be encouraging good old fashioned investigative journalism to help toward that end.

What we should NOT do is step on the slippery slope of putting laws in place that limit free speech. Period. It is just plain stupid.

[Ron Green]

19. Great, but who pays for journalism?

When it was a Profession, or even a Calling, journalism was separated from commerce by a firewall of long tradition and honor. When the broadcast spectrum was given to the Market, essentially free of charge, that firewall was doomed by the fact that entertainment will trump discourse every time.

[Orsino]

23. But journalists won't be held legally responsible for not exposing wrongs...

...so I'm all for mandating minimal transparency, at least, as in "paid for by such and such."

[madinmaryland]

16. This is ABSOLUTELY a first amendment issue. You in essence want to eliminate

the First Amendment. There are countries that do exactly that! Not here, though.

[JuniperLea]

17. It's a slippery slope...

We have other means to show up lies.

[madinmaryland]

22. I absolutely agree with you.

The other question for the OP, that I asked upthread, is who gets to decide what is a lie and what is not?

[JuniperLea]

24. It becomes a very grey area...

Interpretation, perspective... all subjective.

[MineralMan]

20. The first rule of journalism is:

The PR flack is lying.

[JuniperLea]

25. Bullshit...

That's the battle cry of the uninformed.

There are plenty of PR firms that turn down jobs when clients want them to lie... or if the client themselves are just too controversial.

[MineralMan]

26. I am not uninformed. I worked for the largest computer magazine in

the USA for over 15 years. Not once did I meet a truthful PR flack. Not once. I reviewed software and every company that published software lied through its teeth through their PR firms. Every one. My insistence on truthfulness led to awards.

No doubt there are PR people with integrity. I never met any of them. If one firm turns down a client, it's easy enough to find another one.

[JuniperLea]

27. I currently work in PR...

We don't lie. We don't suggest our clients lie either. In fact, if they go against our advice and lie, we break the contract. We have turned down clients, and we've even suggested they go to our competitors. We've even given them contact information. Once we decide a job isn't of our liking, who cares who gets it?

Are you sure you aren't talking about advertisers? There is a huge difference, you know.

[MineralMan]

29. Nope. I guess I'm talking about the PR firms the companies

engaged after ones like yours turned them down.

The reason the rule exists is because the journalist has to check things for him/herself. The assumption that the PR firm is not telling the truth makes it more imperative to examine things before writing.

[JuniperLea]

30. I never trust other people's research...

I think it's imperative to do your own due diligence before writing anything, anywhere.

I still don't get how a PR firm was involved in that scenario. Was there a problem with the software? Some litigation? A merger or acquisition?

[MineralMan]

32. Here's how it worked:

A software company publishes a piece of software. Reviews are part of their marketing strategy. Realizing that there are some software reviewers who will simply rewrite a press release or press kit, they engage a PR firm to produce such a thing. Every company does it. They even send out teams to the offices or homes of reviewers who write for major publications.

What's in the press kit or reviewer's guide? Nonsense. False comparisons with competing products. Descriptions of features that don't even come close to a true representation.

And, lots of writers, poorly-paid, and writing for smaller publication, turn out garbage based on those reviewer's guides and press kits.

Then, the publication gets nastygrams from its readers, who try the product and find out what garbage was written about it.

Then, there are and were publications which paid a premium for reviewers to actually test the product and compare it to the competition and to write accurate reviews. PR firms for software companies hated us. They'd come with a demo team in advance of the product release and try to tell us stuff that simply wasn't true. Then, when the review, which accurately presented the products, they'd whine and moan and threaten us and the publication...empty threats, since the publications cared about what they published.

Big publishers and little ones. All engaged in this nonsense, through their PR firms. In some cases, reviewers like myself simply stopped allowing the advance visits and dealt only with the publisher and the team that designed the programs. Both my wife and I work and worked in the computer journalism field, and for the two main publications dealing with PCs. We reviewed different types of software, and our experiences were the same.

I'm not doing it any longer. My wife still is, but most of the magazines are now gone, since computers and software have become commodities. A pity, really, since the competition has disappeared for most classes of software and the new releases just don't get as close an examination as they once did.

As I said, I never met a single PR person in that industry who was capable of telling the truth about the products or companies they represented. Not one. Ever.

[JuniperLea]

33. Fortunately...

I've only heard of such things. I've never been witness. We do a lot of press releases, but nothing like this. We have a lot of tech clients, but nothing like this either. Interesting. We don't do much on the sell side at all, and our tech clients are so big they have their own internal marketing folk. We don't market at all. There must be a PR darkside I'm fortunate enough not to have to deal with... outside of chuckling about competitors who pick up our trash:)

[rd_kent]

28. Yes, and free speech does (should) not apply to companies.

Especially advertisers. I think they are regulated by truth in advertising laws, so.....

[wininboy]

31. The companies should be regulated. What they say should not.

There should be rules about disclosing the corporate sources of funds