London, according to The Guardian, has become the capital of "reputation laundering." That's a catchy new term, one I suspect we are going to hear more of, even though there's no attempt in this article to define precisely what it means.

In fact, the piece is a pretty shoddy piece of work. The author claims that "the capital's public relations firms are earning millions of pounds a year promoting foreign regimes with some of the world's worst human rights records," including Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka, but there's no evidence to support the claim that this makes London the world capital of such work--there's no attempt to compare the volume of such work in the U.K. to the amount in Washington, D.C., for example.

More significantly, of course, there's no analysis of the kind of work these firms are doing for the regimes involved. Much is made of a PRCA code of conduct that says "political consultants must advise clients where their activities may be illegal, unethical or contrary to professional practice, and to refuse to act for a client in pursuance of any such activity." The author warns that "some of the lucrative deals may breach" the code, but presents no evidence that they do.

At the risk of being tediously repetitive on this point: ethical public relations depends on the honesty and integrity of the work done, not the individual--or company, or regime--on whose behalf it is conducted.

Neil Gibbons, editor of communicate magazine, makes the case in a response to the original article, in which he points out that "good reputation management can lead to change. On Monday, Rwanda is holding presidential elections for the first time in 16 years: a modernizing step that has been propelled by the return of foreign interests."

Sounds like they got some good PR advice.

In this week's newsletter, Arun Sudhaman reports on the controversy over Washington, D.C.-based Fenton Communications--known for its representation of liberal causes--going to work for a Qatari group that is trying to turn public opinion against the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Fenton has come under fire from former Counselor's Academy chair Bruce Rubin, who believes its decision to work for a group that "portrays the U.S. or any of its close allies as an enemy."

We'll get to the specifics of this case in a second, but first it's important to look at the general principle here, since it comes up fairly frequently in our business.

Lawyers justify their work for unpopular causes, companies and individuals by pointing out that everyone is entitled to legal representation. As Rubin rightly points out, there is no similar entitlement to public relations counsel. PR people are under no professional obligation to represent causes they find abhorrent. But they are entitled to work for any cause, company or individual they choose. This seems to me to be a matter of personal conscience.)

The sole exception, I believe, would be when the State Department or some equivalent, raised an official objection--and even then I would argue that if a PR person believes a cause is just, he or she should be prepared to challenge the State Department view.

As I may have mentioned before, I am pretty much a First Amendment fundamentalist. There are few if any issues that do not benefit from a full and frank discussion and robust public debate. If PR people believe anything, they should believe that. It's the core principle of the profession.

Furthermore, I believe the core ethical issues of our profession are defined by what we do, not who we do it for.

It is quite possible to do ethical public relations for clients whose ethics are questionable. Rubin, for example, asks whether it would be right to do PR for a "Charles Manson-type mass murderer." It seems to me that if this Manson type wished to apologize sincerely to victims, make some kind of restitution, or educate others to seek mental help when they start hearing voices, then a PR person would be well within his or her rights to take the account.

Similarly, it is quite possible to do unethical PR for a client with the noblest motives. Lying is wrong, whether it is done on behalf of a giant oil company or an environmental group.

In the case of this Qatari group, there is no allegation that Fenton has done or said anything dishonest.

Indeed, the issue in question seems to me to be an almost classical example of one on which reasonable people can disagree. The United Nations, for example, has called for an end to the Gaza blockade. Would working for the UN be "unethical"?

It's important to differentiate between attacks on the U.S., or one of its allies; and attacks on a specific policy of the U.S. and its allies. Companies hire PR firms to attack government policies (environmental regulation, trade policy and more) all the time. If a group wanted to hire a PR firm to oppose the invasion of Iraq or the war in Afghanistan, it should be entitled to do so, and any PR person who agrees with that view should feel free to offer professional counsel to such a group.

Bruce Rubin has a right to criticize anyone who advocates a position with which he disagrees. And Fenton Communications has just as much right to argue a cause it believes to be a just one, to try to stimulate and influence public debate around that cause. That's what public relations does, and should continue to do.

PETA has taken out a full page ad in PR News to warn that any PR firm taking on Feld Entertainment (parent company of the Barnum & Bailey circus) will take a hit to its own reputation. ""There's not a PR team in the world that is slick enough to sell the beating of baby elephants," says a PETA executive vice president.

I don't disagree with that last statement, but I think PETA is wrong to take this approach. If the organization really cares about animal health, it should be hoping that Feld gets the best PR advice possible--because the best PR advice would presumably involve telling the company that any mistreatment of the animals in its care is unacceptable.

It is possible to do unethical PR in the service of noble organizations (some might say that PETA itself has been guilty in this regard); it is also possible to provide impeccably ethical PR advice to unethical organizations. PR firms should be judged on the ethical quality of their advice, not the ethical standing of their clients.

At Slate's DoubleX Health blog, Sarah Elizabeth Richards reports on research published in the magazine suggesting that informing consumers about the calorie count of menu items in restaurant may not lead to healthier choices.

"The conclusion doesn't bode well for the growing public health trend of requiring chain restaurants to inform consumers about how many calories are in their food," she writes, missing what I would consider to be the point of providing calorie information--and a host of other transparency measures--entirely.

Transparency is not a tool to be used whenever authorities believe it can manipulate people into making the "right" choices; it's a principle that governments in particular (and corporations, when possible) should adhere to because informed consent is an important right.

As I've said before--in this blog and elsewhere--people have a right to information that helps them make informed decisions, regardless of whether they use that information to make the decisions Richards (or healthcare advocates, or government regulators) think they should make.

And if corporations need a cynical reason to adopt greater transparency, the fact that people are provided with the facts also provides those corporations with a ready-made defense if people do continue to make the "wrong" decisions. The tobacco industry's crime, for example, was not selling cigarettes but misleading people about the consequences of smoking.

The first thing to say about this story is that the headline--"Are GlaxoSmithKline's Do-Gooder Moves Genuine or Just Good PR?"--is extremely annoying. If GSK's "do-gooder" moves are good PR, they are genuine; if they are not genuine, they are by definition bad PR.

The rest of the article, however, is a decent overview of corporate responsibility activities at GSK since Andrew Witty took over as chief executive a couple of years ago.

Witty "made changes at GSK relating to policy and ethics, such as voluntarily stopping all corporate political contributions worldwide. He also capped payments to doctors and published a list of fees paid to U.S. health care professionals."

The article's fence-straddling conclusion: "So, perhaps his efforts are legit."

The more I think about the new FTC guidelines on blogger disclosure, the more arbitrary and ill-thought out they seem, not so much in their quest for transparency--which I applaud--but in their attempt to single out one class of reporter or media for more stringent standards of disclosure.

Let's consider some of the absurdity inherent in the FTC's position.

If a reporter receives a software product for review, for example, he can publish a review in The Wall Street Journal or USA Today, without disclosing the software company's largesse. But if he then writes about the same product on his blog, he is subject to the FTC's new regulations and can be punished with a fine. So when he's wearing his print hat, he's a trustworthy individual who is taken at his word. As soon as the same person puts on a blogger hat, though, he's a potential charlatan whose writings must be regulated?

How will this work in the real world? Will a book reviewer for The New York Times be free to keep the source of the book he's reviewing secret in the print edition but be forced to reveal it in the online division? If not--because the NYT's legitimacy extends to whatever medium it is publishing in--is the FTC putting itself in a position of conferring legitimacy (and freedom from regulatory oversight) on some publications but not on others? Will the new regulations apply to the Huffington Post (which is a blog, after all) but not to The New York Post?

What worries me most is that the FTC appears to believe that there's an ethical dividing line, and that all bloggers are on one side and all mainstream media on the other. I don't buy that. Mostly, I don't have the FTC's touching faith in the inherent integrity of print and broadcast journalists.

It's hard to imagine that the new rules won't be applied arbitrarily. Which raises the question of their legitimacy, since any law that is applied selectively is surely open to legal challenge.

Any thoughts?

I believe transparency is one of the core values that public relations professionals must subscribe to in order to practice their craft with integrity and effectiveness, so it will come as no surprise that I am broadly supportive of the new Federal Trade Commission rules that will require bloggers and other social media participants to reveal when they have been provided with free product samples in exchange for product reviews.

I note that the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, which is doing great work raising and promoting ethical and professional standards in the fledgling social media arena, was quick to voice its support for the new rules.

But I would take issue with two elements of The New York Times reporting of this story.

First, the Times says, "the government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts of regulations that have governed other forms of media, like television or print."

But unless I am missing something--someone correct me if I am--there is no regulation forcing a mainstream print reporter to indicate he has received a free copy of the book he is reviewing, a free copy of the software he writes about, or a free flight to a factory he later writes about. Nor is there any regulatory requirement that a television reporter acknowledge a free ticket to a movie she reviews or a free stay at a resort she writes about. (Many, if not most, new organizations have their own guidelines, but that's a separate issue.)

So in this respect, bloggers are being held to a higher standard than other media, not the same standard.

Second, the Times says, "for bloggers who review products, this means that the days of an unimpeded flow of giveaways may be over."

I'm not sure this is true. In fact, savvy marketers will welcome disclosure, as will bloggers who value their credibility. The latter will presumably continue to review products, while acknowledging the largesse of companies involved, and as long as their reviews reflect their true opinions, they will retain and perhaps even enhance their credibility. Since credibility is precisely the quality smart marketers hope to receive in return for their products, those bloggers will continue to receive a steady flow of freebies.

I'd like to believe that the "Center for Consumer Freedom" is the death rattle of a dying industry.

The Center has all the hallmarks of a good, old-fashioned front group, an industry organization constructed to defend the interests of giant corporations, while providing an utterly generic--and utterly misleading--name for them to hide their true identities behind.

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a front group for the beverage industry. It's responsible for a campaign against New York City Health Department, which has launched a campaign designed to highlight the role sugary sodas play in the obesity epidemic, and another effort claiming that high-fructose corn syrup has been "acquitted" of charges that it is "a unique cause of obesity."

You'll note that even though high-fructose corn syrup is being acquitted by the very companies pushing it on consumers, the only way they can make the "acquittal" anything other than a flat-out lie is with the clever wording of the "charge." To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever suggested HFCS is a "unique" cause of obesity. It is, however, a significant cause of obesity--and the CCF's ad doesn't actually try to deny that fact.

If you want further evidence of the fundamental dishonesty of the CCF campaign, note the last sentence of the latter article: "Rick Berman, executive director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, declined to specify which companies or trade groups fund his organization's activities."

The role of Berman in the organization is one giveaway. The fact that the group won't reveal its funding is the biggest giveaway. The companies and trade groups paying for the message are too ashamed to stand behind it. Or they want to play both sides: undermining public health messages via the CCF while simultaneously pretending to play a constructive role in the public health debate.

In an age of transparency, the Center for Consumer Freedom is opaque. In an age of authenticity, it's unashamedly fake. At a time when consumers are demanding to be treated with respect, it wears its contempt for consumers' intelligence with pride.

I'd love to see this campaign blow up in the faces of those who foisted it upon the public. But even if it doesn't, the next campaign to use these tactics, or the one after that, will. Because this level of corporate duplicity and mendacity is simply not sustainable in the 21st century.

Ben Goldacre, consistently one of the most entertaining columnists in the U.K. media, takes aim--not for the first time--at bogus surveys, the companies that commission them, the PR people who disseminate them, and the newspapers that give them space. He bemoans the fact that "journalists can cheerfully make grand claims for a product that would be impossible in any advert."

I don't disagree with anything he says. In an ideal world, the companies and PR firms that promulgate these so-called surveys would be rewarded not with free, unquestioning coverage but open mockery; the newspapers that republish them would lose credibility and readership. But beyond writing more columns about it, and educating people how to spot the spurious, it's hard to imagine a form of prevention--regulating journalistic speech, for example--that is not worse than the disease.

I've always argued that it's possible to do ethical public relations for the most ethically-challenged industries (tobacco, for example), and that it's equally possible to do unethical public relations for ethically sound causes. Unless you're an unreconstructed believer in the idea--usually wrongly attributed to Machiavelli--that the end justifies the means, that should be obvious: telling the truth while in the pay of a tobacco company is honorable enough; telling lies as part of an anti-smoking campaign is reprehensible.

The point is illustrated by this story (via The Stat Blog, a U.S. counterpart to Ben Goldacre's invaluable Bad Science column for The Guardian), which reflects on the double standard too often applied to corporate and advocacy group research.

In brief, a study conducted by The Center for Health and Risk Communication at George Mason University (which publishes The Stats Blog) found that 79 percent of toxicologists familiar with the work of the Natural Resources Defense Council thought the environmental group overstated chemical risks. The NRDC complained that it was "very unscientific" to release such findings without peer review. But when the NRDC was asked whether it ever released data before peer-review, it responded that: "We're an advocacy group and we don't hold ourselves out as scientific researchers."

So the next time NRDC seeks to use data to influence public policy on issues related to supposedly toxic chemicals, will it remind reporters that it makes no claims as to the soundness of its science? Don't count on it.

Just for the record, I'm not suggesting that environmental groups are worse than corporations when it comes to dodgy research (corporations and their trade associations tend to use particularly specious numbers when they are estimating--and usually exaggerating--the economic impact of regulations). I'm just saying that we should hold both the "good guys" and the "bad guys" to the same standards.