Yesterday, Stephanie Harnett, a young staffer at Mercury Public Affairs in L.A. who was working on behalf of Wal-Mart, was fired after she was caught posing as a reporter in order to spy on a press conference of a pro-labor group. Did one young staffer go rogue? Or is this standard operating procedure?
Wal-Mart is trying to open a new store in LA's Chinatown area. Local labor groups, among others, are challenging the store's permitting. It's a fight with big stakes for Wal-Mart, as it goes right to the heart of the company's strategy of expanding in large cities. And now, one labor group says that an employee of a PR firm working for Wal-Mart actually posed as a reporter in order to infiltrate one of their meetings.
The public relations industry is like a bird on a high wire act and all the world's a stage of mixed metaphors. Though one might assume that a job writing and distributing press releases would require both sharp writing skills and a savvy sense of one's audience, one would be mistaken. And gay? This is PR Dummies. Gay, every week.
The public relations industry provides a welcome refuge to craven scoundrels, scheming nihilists, and the clinically insane. All we do is peek inside once in a while. This is PR Dummies.
The public relations industry features a low bar for entry and an even lower bar for performance. Were the bars to get any lower, it would be an underground prison, rather than a hell on earth. This is PR Dummies. Hella dumb, every week.
The practice of public relations is to subtle, poetic language what a hammer is to a willow tree: not it. These are the PR Dummies. Defending the right to poor taste, every week.
A CNN investigation has found that a charity called the Disabled Veterans National Foundation suffered from gross mismanagement problems including, among other things, the fact that instead of giving money to veterans, it spent all of its money with a direct marketing firm called Quadriga, "which owns two direct-mail fundraising companies hired by the DVNF to help garner donations."
The public relations industry is at best comical, at worst evil, and, for the most part, a simpering crab pot of truth-twisting and careerist ego stroking. This is PR Dummies. Sticking our hand in the pot, once a week.
The public relations industry is the birthplace of nutrition-free filler that grows up to become pseudonews. Sometimes, it can be a terrifying thing to behold in its rawest form. This is PR Dummies. The dumbth of PR, every week.
The public relations industry is often called upon to smooth over the errors of others. This makes their own mistakes all the more delicious. This is PR Dummies. Dummies, in PR, every week.
The public relations industry is a festival of shamelessness in which the most shameless are never shamed. We are here to change that. This is PR Dummies. The most shameful shames, every week.
The public relations industry is a heartless machine that cares not about a human's life or death, unless it can be used to sell a product. Your soul is only worth a poorly written press release. This is PR Dummies. The worst of the worst, every week.
The public relations industry is full of whores. Sometimes, they get themselves confused with the rest of the world. We present one of those instances, below. This is PR Dummies. Flackery's worst, every week.
We take a backseat to no one when it comes to spewing forth venom at the public relations industry. But we feel compelled to stand up and make this point: PR people doing research on what reporters have written and making a file on that topic is not a scandal. It is the same thing that reporters do, okay?
