Weblog: A Round-Up of PR News From the WorldWide Web

You'd think these might be good times for a magazine like Business Ethics, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary. After all, the need for businesses to get some ethics has never been clearer. But the Washington Post reports that "A black pall of deep despair has settled over the good people who put out Business Ethics, one of the world's thinnest magazines. Just as the staff was preparing to publish the gala 15th-anniversary issue the robber barons of American capitalism spoiled their party by proving (once again) that the title of the magazine just might be an oxymoron." In one column, contributing writer Milton Moskowitz asks: "What Has CSR [corporate social responsibility] Really Accomplished? Much of the movement has been a public relations smokescreen."

In a Salon column that examines the move towards triple bottom line reporting—
incorporating social and environmental performance as well as financial performance— Ariana Huffington pokes a little fun at Sandy Weill, who earned all kind of kudos after announincing Citigroup's campaign "to be a leader in defining and adopting higher standards." Says Huffington, "The headline-grabber was that Citigroup will no longer provide financing to companies that conceal debt from shareholders. In other words: it's no longer going to aid and abet the fraudulent acts of corporate crooks. How noble... I guess we're living in a time when 'Big Corporation Announces It Will Do The Right Thing' really is news."

Here's a rare news story that requires absolutely no comment from me: "Five Enron insiders who reaped $7 million in the year before the company's collapse are among a group of laid-off Enron workers who are asking a bankruptcy court for extra pay, the Associated Press reported Monday. They include the wife of former CEO Jeffrey Skilling."

Twenty-nine of the world's 100 largest economic entities are now transnational corporations rather than countries, according to a report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Exxon Mobil is the largest on the list, coming in at number 45, slightly below Chile and ahead of Pakistan, Peru, and New Zealand. Other companies figuring prominently include General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and General Electric. According to a press release, "The value-added activities of the 100 largest TNCs have grown faster than those of countries in recent years, accounting for 4.3% of world GDP in 2000, compared with 3.5% in 1990. This suggests that the relative importance of these companies in the global economy is on the rise."

Remember how the market plummeted in the hours after President George W. Bush gave his speech on corporate reform, the speech that made it clear he was going to do as little as possible to actually reform things? Remember how most people assumed the market was reacting to his refusal to contemplate significant measures to crack down on corporate malfeasance? Apparently, the conventional wisdom was wrong. According to James Glassman, writing in The Weekly Standard, the market actually felt Bush's half-measures were too Draconian. Says Glassman, "The Bush speech more likely frightened investors because he indicated he would back the most extreme legislation that was working its way through Congress." For those incldued to buy the Glassman spin, it's worth considering two things: first, this guy is that author of Dow 36,000 (a prediction that's beginning to look like a typo—one zero too many perhaps?); and second, the market rebounded this week after legislation far more Draconian than anything the president endorsed in his speech finally passed both houses. Don't you hate it when the facts get in the way of good dogma?

James Surowiecki isn't entirely serious when he suggests, in a new Slate column, that we should Blame Iacocca for the current round of corporate corruption stories, but he does trace some of the problems corporations are facing today back to the cult of personality that sprang up around CEOs in the wake of Iacocca's revival of Chrysler. His explanation of how the search for superstar CEOs led to sky-rocketing salaries is pretty convincing, as is his attack on stock options, which seem to have exacerbated the problem they were designed to solve:"In practice, option packages actually turned out to facilitate—rather than curb—self-dealing.... Issuing more options didn't increase executives' stake in companies. They just cashed in existing options.... If stock prices skyrocketed, they got massive options grants as a reward; if stock prices plummeted, they got massive options grants as an incentive, or they had their options repriced. Either way, executives couldn't really lose."

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports that Ari Flesicher was unhappy with cable news networks such as Fox News and CNBC, which ran stock price tickers a little too prominently during President Bush's speech last week—the one designed to soothe fears over corporate corruption, the one that sent the stock market into a tailspin from which it has not yet begun to recover. Fleischer calls the split-screen approach "a troubling new development that sensationalizes and distorts what makes markets go up and down. It suggests to viewers there's a causal connection between a president's speech and minute-by-minute market shifts." Well, duh! (Republican lacky Roger Ailes, also head of Fox News, later said running the enlarged ticker was "a mistake.")

This week's sign that the apocalypse is upon us (with apologies to Sports Illustrated): columnist Steve Wilstein explains that Reebok, which last year gave basketball player Allen Iverson a 10-year, $50 million endorsement deal, is defending its star after he threw his wife out of their home naked and then brandished a gun while searching for her. Says the company, "It is Allen's celebrity status, not the facts, that continues to fuel these proceedings. We firmly believe that Allen will be vindicated and Reebok, along with his millions of fans, will still be standing by him when he is." Anyone but me remember when Reebok wanted to position itself as a socially responsible corporation?

Speaking as someone who could stand to lose a few pounds, I was outraged over the outrage about Southwest Airlines' decision to ask people who take up two seats to pay for both of them. Having said that, angryfinger.com's spoof of the airline's decision is pretty funny. Under the headline, "Southwest Airlines Announces New Policy of Storing Midgets in Overhead Bin," the satirical site quotes an imaginary spokesperson: "We have instructed all of our flight attendents to lure the little people into a false sense of security by pretending to show them how the oxygen masks work. When they have the mask securely in place, a mild barbituate is released leaving the dwarves unconscious for 5-10 hours."

Dumb Quote of the Week Award: George Walner, founder of Hypercom (it makes card swipes for checkout counters) says so many stupid things in this Forbes article, it's impossible to pick just one. Defending a star performer, accused of rape by several co-workers, he explains: "He was bringing in $70 million a year. Do you fire your top rock star because he's difficult?" But in the end, the following stood out, as an explanation of why he chose not to believe one of the accusers: "She claimed that, yes, but I can't see that happening. She's not a good-looking woman." The really scary thing is, Walner's not even the most misogynistic guy in his own company.

Lame Excuse of the Week Award: America West says it removed a passenger from one of its planes after she asked whether the pilot was sober because her remark constituted a "potential security problem." Okay, we understand that joking with security personnel about having a bomb in your luggage can get you thrown in a small room and strip searched (although we agree with George Carlin that the warning notices are insufficiently clear on whether irony is permitted) but we can't see any way this question could be taken as a threat. Still, America West spokeswoman Patty Nowack was insistent the airline did the right thing. "While this passenger may have been joking it is difficult to determine if someone is joking or serious. We take any comment regarding safety seriously." More likely, the airline's crew was just a little over-sensitive after two of its pilots were arrested last week for attempting to take off while already high.

It's quite possible that Sony and other record companies are guilty of the charges leveled against them by Michael Jackson at a recent New York press conference, but critics of the music industry could not have chosen a worse spokesman for their cause: not only did Sony spend $55 million promoting Jackson's latest album, Invincible, but most of his financial wounds are self-inflicted. Sony didn't hesitate to make that point in defending itself—something it did with just enough passion and resolve this week. "Charges of pedophilia have really spooked a lot of American record buyers," said a top-ranking Sony executive. "There are a lot of parents who don't think he's a wholesome entertainer. It's shadowed him."

Refreshing candor from General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz, who appears to be the only person in Detroit to notice that the emperor has no clothers. Today's generation of towering, angular, plastic-clad vehicles look"like a whole family of angry kitchen appliances: demented toasters, furious bread machines and vengeful trash compactors." The guy should be writing copy.

More than four out of five CEOs cheat at golf, according to a new survey released by Starwood Hotels & Resorts. The survey found 82 percent admitted to cheating, with common fudges including mulligans, stepping on an opponent's ball or "forgetting" the whiffed shots. And most of the cheating takes place with money—an average of $589—on the line. But 99 percent of those questioned said that despite their dubious country club ethics, they considered themselves honest in business.

There has always been something cult-like about Apple Computer and its followers.Now a column at eWeek reveals what happens to followers who dare the question the corporate orthodoxy. The company is denying what it calls "rumor sites" press access to this year's MacWorld Expo. Rumor sites, apparently, are those that print information about Apple that doesn't come directly from the company's press releases. Columnist Matthew Rothenberg provides other examples of Apple's fanaticism about controlling information, including legal threats aimed at sites that published photographs of new products. Says Rothenberg, "Apple owes its survival to the unshakeable support of the Mac community, which has suffered with rare good humor Cupertino's sometimes rocky financial and product performance—as well as its frequent spasms of unrivaled arrogance."

An almost brilliant idea! The marketing department at Disney subsidiary Touchstone Pictures says it will create crop circles at unidentified locations around the world to generate buzz tied to the upcoming Mel Gibson movie Signs, in which Gibson plays a farmer who discovers a message in crop circles. Wouldn't this have been more effective if the company has created the crop circles without announcing it beforehand, and then revealed its role a few days before the movie's debut?

SatireWire strikes again, scooping its competitors to reveal that the Supreme Court has decided corporate accounts should be protected as works of art, because "they create something from nothing." There are lots of nice touches in the report, but my favorite is a quote from WorldCom "chief financial artist" Scott Sullivan: "A man with a concretized view of the world may only be able to see numbers that 'Don't add up.' But someone whose perceptions are not always chained to reality—a stock analyst, say—may see numbers that, like the human spirit, aspire to be greater than they are."

It's nice to see a high-profile Catholic finally stand up and state the obvious, which is that the current scandal is not the fault of the media, but of the church itself. Writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, Andrew Greeley is harshly critical of the church's public relations defense, which has consisted primarily of the claim that the media wouldn't object to child molestation if it wasn't for their anti-Catholic bias. Says Greeley, "No one in the media donned a clerical collar and abused a child or a minor. No one in the media reassigned a habitual child abuser. In fact, if the Boston Globe had not told the story of the church's horrific failures in Boston, the abuse would have gone right on. There would have been no crisis, no demand from the laity that the church cut out this cancer of irresponsibility, corruption and sin, and no charter for the protection of children. The Globe did the church an enormous favor."

Too amateurish to be the work of a corporate front group, yet unusually thorough for a site run by a lone misanthrope, Greenpiece.org presents something of a mystery, unless you take the view that corporate America's attack dogs are getting so sophisticated they are designing sites that look like the work of an obsessive individual rather than a well-funded astroturf operation. It describes itself as a parody, but it isn't... it's simply an attack site, drawing on sources from around the world, usually without any information that would enable a reader to judge the credibility of the source, to attack the environmental movement. Who, for example, is Dr. Gurumurti Natarajan, who doesn't do much for his hope of being taken seriously when talks about Greenpeace's "incredulous non-science" (he doesn't say what the non-science is incredulous about)? PRWatch has done some digging into the site's owner, and it's all pretty suspicious.

A few seconds after seeing a TV ad in which a rival of America Online accuses the Internet company of everything short of the Vincent Foster assassination, I came across this story in The New York Times (link requires registration), explaining Viacom's decision not to run ads from the Sierra Club asking Ford Motor Company and CEO Bill Ford to "do his part and to produce more fuel-efficient cars." Viacom " felt it was inappropriate for the Sierra Club to single out an individual and attack an individual in the ad," according to a spokesman. A double-standard? Maybe not, as long as Viacom plans on also turning away political campaign ads that "single out an individual" (usually a candidate's opponent) for attack. I'm not holdingmy breath.

Companies that market to young people want to appear hip, edgy, and bold, right? Those are three words 7Up would like television viewers to think of when they think of the company's brand, and much of its advertising underscores that positioning. But the decision to pull a recent ad set in a prison (you can see it at the company's website) makes it look just like every other spineless corporation out there. The ad, which I thought was funny, did feature a sly reference to prison rape, which drew the ire of a spokesperson for Stop Prison Rape, but what's really disappointing is the quote from 7Up, which apparently felt its critics "had some very valid points about the ad being able to be interpreted a different way from what we intended." How was the ad misinterpreted? As Rob Walker asks in a Slate column, "What possible alternative interpretation could there be for [the] winking announcement that he refuses to bend over?" With its corporate-speak apology 7Up comes across was hip, edgy, and weasly.

Plenty of our allies in the war against terror are "corrupt, repressive, authoritarian regimes." Unfortunately, the corrupt, repressive, authoritarian leaders of Saudi Arabia aren't satisfied simply to work with us, they want us to love them. That's why they asked Washington public affairs firm Qorvis Communications to create an ad campaign to tell Americans what good friends the Saudis are. It's a no-win proposition, as this review from Advertising Age columnist Bob Garfield shows. The most offensive thing about the ads, in Garfield's opinion: They're signed "The People of Saudi Arabia."

This was e-mailed to me by about 20 different people, so you've probably seen it already. It's still pretty funny.

And while we're in a humorous vein, it's worth checking out Slate's attempts to pull together a volume of The Management Secrets of Bernard Law. Slate readers have pretty much nailed the biggest problems with the leadership style of the Cardinal, an early contender for the Worst PR Man of the Year title. Secret No. 5: "When the going gets tough, the tough blame file clerks."

Writing in The New Republic, Jonathan Chait provides a devastating critique of the nation's most high-profile public relations practitioner, Ari Fleischer. Says Chait, "The typical press secretary shovels out fairly blunt propaganda, the kind reporters can spot a mile away and sidestep easily. But Fleischer has a way of blindsiding you, leaving you disoriented and awestruck." Fleischer's secret appears to be that he is not afraid to flat-out lie to reporters. Asked why his boss (Bill Archer at the time) favored a particular piece of legislation, he simply denied the position. His boss didn't support the legislation in question. Then, when it becomes clear that the denial was untrue, he simply denies the denial. It's brilliant stuff. Says Chait, "Most press secretaries 'spin.' But what Fleischer does, for the most part, is not really spin. It's a system of disinformation—blunter, more aggressive, and, in its own way, more impressive than spin. Much of the time Fleischer does not engage with the logic of a question at all. He simply denies its premises—or refuses to answer it on the grounds that it conflicts with a Byzantine set of rules governing what questions he deems appropriate." It works in the current environment, because asking tough questions is viewed as treasonous, but don't try this at home folks.

Fleischer's unique blend of obfuscation and downright dishonesty earns him Slate's Whopper of the Week award. In a series of questions and answers on the subject of nation building, Fleischer ducks and weaves, falls back on Ali-style rope-a-dope, and then simply lies. Says Slate, "Fleischer throws his questioner off balance first by hectoring her, and then by creating a plausible-sounding distinction..." The fascinating thing is that all this energy is being expended on a subject no one outside the room cares one iota about.

Former Kennedy public relations advisor (and current Hill & Knowlton exec) Frank Mankiewicz widens the attack to include the Bush administration's entire publicity machine in a column written for the American Bar Association website. Mankiewicz thinks the "public relations campaign adopted by the Bush administration in this 'war on terrorism'is eerily reminiscent of the propaganda war waged during World War II."

Here's a big surprise: the government's anti-drug ads don't work. The Wall Street Journal reports "drug czar" John Walters admits "this campaign isn't reducing drug use." The fact that kids don't like being preached to surely won't come as a big surprise to anyone but the "social marketers" who seem to design their campaig messages to appease the puritanical religious right rather than to impact the behavior of the supposed target audience. Still, if you think this campaign is a flop, wait until you see the results of the ludicrous new ads suggesting that pot smokers are supporting terrorism.

There seems to be an emerging consensus that an over-emphasis on Wall Street—and particularly on "massaging" numbers to hit expectations quarter after quarter after quarter—is one of the reasons for the massive ethical crisis in American business. The good news is that some investors are apparently waking up to that fact. The consistently excellent Rob Walker reports in Slate that Vanguard founder John Bogle wants to create a "Federation of Long-Term Investors." Walker likes the idea, and explains succinctly why it's needed. "Too many of the investors who have come into the market in the last 10 years seem to want it both ways—they want corporations to be honest and patriotic and for stocks to rise as quickly as possible. This can happen, but it certainly won't if most participantsin the market simply focus on the last part."

Is this the most irrelevant boycott call ever? The Wall Street Journal's editorial page is calling for a boycott of Abercrombie & Fitch because its catalog "looks more like a 300-page soft-core porn magazine than the mail-order catalog it purports to be." The Journal, which has defended companies that despoil the environment and employ Third World toddlers, is outraged enough to acknoweldge that "in a free economy, the public is equally free to vote with its credit card and shop elsewhere." Unfortunately for the Journal, it's hard to imagine that many of its readers are potential Abercrombie & Fitch customers. (Any teenager reading the Journal is hopelessly out of the student loop.) The real reason to boycott A&F can be found here, but presumably doesn't trouble the Journal's editors nearly as much as the prospect of youthful sexuality.

Former Carter administration speechwriter Walter Shapiro doesn't understand why the media gave such a warm send-off to departing Bush communications director Karen Hughes, given the fact that this is perhaps the least media friendly White House in living memory. Says Shapiro, "All Hughes ever dished out was bland and watery gruel. As Bush's communications director, she has been democratic to a fault, cleaving to an equal-opportunity policy built around a consistent lack of information and insight." Meanwhile, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank predicts that Hughes' departure will post a challenge to the administration's careful control of information. "Her return to Texas will deprive Bush of unified control over his public image by a close and powerful confidante," says Milbank.

Maybe the satirists at The Onion read the same stories we did, because the publication takes a look at the sad plight of a fictitious "petrochemical conglomerate with holdings in steel and concrete" and the generosity of a community that rallied round after a drop in fourth quarter earnings. "Life has been pretty tough for me ever since my husband walked out, leaving me to raise three kids on a waitress' salary," says one resident quoted in the story. "But hearing about CEC MidCorp's financial troubles on CNN/fn really put my situation into perspective. I mean, there I was, obsessing over how I was going to find $300 to pay the rent, when there's a company out there that lost more in three months than I'll see in my entire lifetime. I knew I had to do something."

After the Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun and Jesus as CEO, will the next leadership tome introduce business executives to the management style of Ozzie Osbourne? That's the premise on which Rob Walker build an unusually amusing column at Slate. Walker sees Osbourne as a "big picture CEO" and suggests, "The parallels between the Osbournes and an efficient corporation, then, are indisputable. Indeed, Ozzy's performance was exemplary—he articulated (albeit in a slurry voice laced with profanity) the goals and let others take care of the particulars without any further interference, or indeed awareness, on his part." (The starting point for all this whimsy is yet another inane article comparing the management style of George W. Bush to that of certain corporate leaders.)

Out of the frying pan, into the fire? Exxon Mobil lobbyist Randy Randol denies writing the memo he forwarded to the Bush administration, urging the removal of Robert Watson from his position as leader of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body that monitors global warming. Good thing, since Watson's replacement, supported by the U.S. and dozens of emerging companies, is far more radical than Watson, having called for a boycott of U.S. companies (and Exxon Mobil specifically) for their refusal to accept the scientific evidence on climate change. This Slate column explains why "the company should immediately fire its Washington staff for incompetence" if it was involved.

Gotta love Krispy Kreme, which attracts this kind of attention wherever it opens a new store. The company warned police about the lines that would form to welcome its latest emporium, but "I personally didn't believe them until I came out at 3:00 and saw the line already forming down the block," says a police officer. What's even more impressive is the fact the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had four writers working on this story: Delma Francis and Melissa Levy get the byline, and Jackie Crosby and Willard Woods "contributed to this report."

This sounds like a very bad idea. Anyone remember the last time Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates decided to testify on his company's behalf? The software giant avoided breakup only because of the intervention of a new, more monopoly-freindly administration. Says the author of this Salon article, "The choice to put Gates on the stand could be a risky one for Microsoft. Many of the most damaging statements and e-mails during the liability phase of the trial came from Gates himself, and he has a reputation of being easily frustrated with people who are not technically savvy."

The Onion takes a look at the "Silicon Valley rebound" in one of its patented "Infographics" (link in left column), which lists among the "signs of life" in the tech sector: "drkoop.com planning modestly lavish relaunch party at San Mateo Days Inn," "Hardware Hints section of True Value website updated for first time to November 2000," and "Segway sales up from three in 2001 to five in 2002."

Is there anything more disturbing than a corporate song? If you think so, check out ZDNetUK, which offers a "top 20" corporate hit parade featuring songs so saccharine that would make Paul McCartney cringe. Number one on the charts is KPMG's "Our Vision of Corporate Strategy," but like the guys at ZD, we like the chances of Honeywell's entry: "Honeywell has achieved the highest number of clichés-per-minute of any anthem we have yet heard. With one utter clunker in every single line, it is hard to imagine how any song could ever beat it for utter cringeworthiness."

"Honest administrations are all alike, but each dishonest administration is dishonest in its own way," says Michael Kinsley in his lead-in to a story on the Bush administration's mendacity. The White House's response to the short-lived Venezuelan coup is Kinsley's hook for a piece that looks at the way Presidents lie. Says Kinsley, "If the truth was too precious to waste on politics for Bush I and a challenge to overcome for Clinton, for our current George Bush it is simply boring and uncool. Bush II administration lies are often so laughably obvious that you wonder why they bother." (An aside: the Bush administration's support for the overthrow of someone who was elected by majority vote—perhaps George W is jealous?—completely undermines the efforts of Charlotte Beers, who is charged with promoting American values to skeptical foreigners. They will likely be even more skeptical, assuming democracy was supposed to be one of those values.)

Never heard of the Enny Awards? Be grateful; it probably means you didn't win one this year. The Enny Awards are presented by a group called United for a Fair Economy, and "honor" companies who share the same values as Enron. The awards get a fair bit of coverage in the Kansas City Star, which also publishes UFE's "Ten Habits of Highly Defective Corporations," including "providing excessive executive compensation and incentives that encourage overstated profits for personal gain," and "laying off employees to cut costs while increasing executive pay for implementing this cost-cutting strategy."

The Wall Street Journal's story on the financial woes of the public relations business is bound to cause much hand-wringing, but the fact is there's nothing in the text to support the headline's contention that "Buying PR Firms Backfires For the Advertising Industry." Yes, most of the big firms posted declining revenues last year, and many are chasing small accounts they would have ignored at the height of the dot-com boom, but there's not a single quote from a single advertising executive expressing remorse over the acquisitions. One bad year does not undermine the strategic validity of an acquisition, especially since most big PR firms remained profitable last year, acting swiftly to address the drop off in business. Even stranger is the timing of the story, coming just as the business starts to pick up again.

In a Slate "Moneybox" column, Rob Walker analyzes the motivation behind IBM's warning that future earnings might not meet Wall Street expectations, and concludes the company is practicing "new candor" in response to post-Enron investor skepticism, and setting the stage for a more positive announcement when the actual results are announced. Says Walker, "There was probably no way for the company to avoid some kind of negative announcement. A couple of years ago a company in this pickle might have tried to put the best possible face on things, minimize short-term damage to its stock, and hope the rising economic tide would lift its boat to the best of the bad scenarios. In the current environment, the opposite strategy can make sense: If you must announce bad news, then the lower you set expectations, the better."

In a perfect world, sound public policy would be guided by science. In the real world, however, science is expected to contort itself to comply with the beliefs of ideologues, which is what Robert Watson, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds himself under fire from the Bush administration and several large energy companies, led by Exxon Mobil. In an effort that's the corporate equivalent of the religious right's campaign to expel evolution from our schools, Exxon seems to believes that if it ignores the science, the problem with simply go away. Salon quotes David Doniger, a policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, "This campaign by ExxonMobil went far beyond 'Here are some people to fill empty spaces.' It's transparently an effort to disrupt the organization and destroy its effectiveness. It's just another window into the mostly secret relationship between the big energy companies, who are the puppeteers, and the administration, who does what they tell them."

If the Bush administration finds science irritating, it must find BP absolutely infuriating. The Bush dogma is that American companies cannot be expected to comply with the demands of the Kyoto treaty for reducing greenhouse gas emissions because it's too expensive. But as TomPaine.com reports, BP not only cut its greenhouse gas emissions by about twice the amount called for by the treaty, but did so ahead of schedule and at no net cost to the company. Says the story's author, Seth Dunn, "The Bush administration has made a mantra of the claim that mandatory greenhouse gas reductions would be prohibitively expensive, costing millions of jobs, cutting into gross domestic product, and harming U.S. competitiveness. The fatal flawof Bush's argument is that his estimates are based on theoretical economic models that don't fully capture how environmental policy affects technological change."

Greenpeace has surveyed the Fortune 100 to ascertain their position on global warming, and publishes the results here.

Bob Williams, a senior reporter with the Raleigh News & Observer, is concerned that journalists are becoming too dependent on company spokespeople—read public relations professionals—rather than primary sources for information, and says so in an essay at Poynter.org. Williams quotes Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, who says, "Journalists usually hurt themselves when they routinely accept a spokesperson as a viable substitute for the real thing." Williams goes on to complain, "One big problem with the increasing use of spokespeople is that it can compromise two of the basic principles of journalism ethics: accuracy and fairness. By talking to a spokesperson first, the reporter is making a conscious decision to rely on secondhand information. Making matters worse, the reporter is choosing to use secondhand information from a source with a clear mandate to make the boss or client look good in print or on television." The column has sparked a discussion, with other reporters weighing in with their own frustrations.

For more than a decade, Reebok has been supporting human rights, presenting awards to controversial champions of the underprivileged. The company gets marketing mileage out of its Human Rights Awards, which have engaged celebrities such as Sting and Robert Redford and which differentiate the company from arch-rival Nike, which has been consistently crticized by labor activists around the world. But it has also helped fund some important campaigns. But it won't be helping Indonesian labor organizer Dita Sari, whose decision to spurn Reebok's largesse is detailed in a Salon article. Says Sari, "I said to Reebok, 'We know how you treat your workers in the Third World. I know because I helped organize them and carried out actions with them. We know you once paid your workers less than a dollar a day when your sneakers were selling for a hundred and that you rented the police to destroy us. Understanding this, we feel that it isn't appropriate for you to put the lid on the wrongs you've committed toward workers by giving this kind of award.'"

Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie acknowledges in The Wall Street Journal that the unseemly war of words between Helwett-Packard and dissident director Walter Hewlett will persuade CEOs to exercise greater control over their boards. But Yoffie makes a compelling case that too much corporate control over the HP board was part of the problem. "H-P's board has traditionally operated under a set of rules that maximizes management's influence. The CEO, for example, serves simultaneously as chairman of the board. This arrangement allows her to structure the agenda, control the information flow, and decide when to cut off debate... Under these conditions, it becomes difficult for even the most dedicated board to identify and resolve potential disputes... And even if an outside director does express discomfort with management's position, there is rarely the opportunity for a full vetting of concerns."

What's behind the recent rash of business scandals? James Ledbetter offers several explanations in a Slate column: greater media scrutiny, the perceived opportunity for Democrats to take political advantage of corporate links to the GOP, and "a broader argument that the reign of scandal is a natural, final phase of the business cycle, a predictable late-life crisis in an economy driven by a boom sector. Whether the sector is aerospace in the '60s, health care in the '80s, or the Internet in the '90s, the same milestones exist. In the beginning, the technology or service is largely in the hands of government. Then, as the market opens up to private business, huge amounts of money are invested, creating a boom. This is followed by a period of consolidation and then a crash. The last stage is scandal."

Corporate America is mad as hell, and it isn't going to take it any more. Several large companies have fought back successfully against former employees who post inaccurate information online, in some cases winning significant damages. Fox News reports, "As the number of Internet users and electronic bulletin boards soars, so has the tendency for people who use the perceived anonymity of the medium to lash out or 'flame' companies and institutions. But with the increased venting comes more and more lawsuits from corporate lawyers who have discovered posters' identities and sued them, arguing that their flaming has crossed the line from free speech to defamation." Lawsuits are forcing ISPs to reveal the identities of anonymous posters, and companies are cashing in: Varian Medical Systems in California won a $775,000 jury verdict against two former workers who accused managers on at least 100 message boards of discriminating against pregnant employees and being homophobic. In most states, online posters cannot be sued when they are merely stating opinions but can be held accountable for falsehoods and defamation.

Reporters are still unhappy with the way the Pentagon is handling the release of information about the progress of the war on terrorism. The Boston Globe reports on a meeting between Pentagon PR chief Torie Clarke and war correspondents, and says reporters continue "to voice frustration at the military's control over information." Journalists complained about issues ranging from an inability to get civilian casualty reports to problems getting access to troops in Kandahar to military censorship imposed on a reporter covering Operation Anaconda. But Clarke rejects the criticism: ''Everything you hear and see and read out there says the American people have an extraordinary understanding of this ... very unconventional war.''

The proxy battle between Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina and dissident shareholders led by Walter Packard has provided ample entertainment in recent months, but now—Packard's never-say-die attitude notwithstanding—appears to be over. In his most recent Slate column, Rob Walker looks at the battle and its consequences. "Even murkier than the final tally is whether the emergence of such thorough 'democratization' led to a shareholder vote that was more informed than usual or just more hotly contested," says Walker. "But perhaps it's attracted enough attention that, whatever the final outcome, it will convince all sorts of shareholders that their proxy votes can matter."

Most modern companies have a mission, but how many stop to ask what will happen when their mission is accomplished? If that's a question that just never occurred to you, that's probably why you're stuck in a boring PR job instead of working for The Onion. Consistently the funniest thing of the Internet, The Onion shoots a few satirical arrows at Dell Computer this week, quoting founder Michael Dell: "We did it. Back when I started this company, I vowed that I would not rest until we revolutionized the way computers are sold. Well, at long last, that day is here. Bye."

Revlon is set for a starring role in the ABC daytime soap All My Children as part of an advertising deal that includes corporate and product placement for the cosmetics giant. According to a report in The Guardian, "The producers of show came up with the idea after looking for a new storyline for one of the key characters, a former beauty queen turned businesswoman who runs her own cosmetics empire. Fans of the soap will see the evil Erica Kane wage war against Revlon after the cosmetics giant poaches one of her top employees." The deal means Revlon will form a major part of the show's plot for the next three months, in return for which it has agreed to spend several million pounds on advertising.

Since its invention, the printing press has been associated with freedom of speech. The image of the "anonymous pamphleteer," harnessing the power of the press to raise troublesome issues and dissent from government policies is an enduring and abiding one. You might expect printing companies to embrace this tradition, but at least one seems to be rejecting it. OfficeMax has posted warnings that "During this time of heightened security awareness, we will report suspicious or questionable requests for printing or document reproduction to law enforcement authorities." At least one customer has objected, pointing out, "This policy does not make anyone more secure. On the contrary, it is likely to intimidate people who may hold controversial political or religious opinions, and suppress their right to disseminate those opinions through flyers." OfficeMax claims it has a "social responsibility" to rat out its customers.

What will be the long-term impact of the Harvard Business Review scandal on the reputation of Jack Welch, former chief executive of GE? Newsweek figures it could be significant. "His image as the best manager of the last 50 years is his biggest asset," says the magazine. "People made his recent memoir a best seller because they think he’s a guy worth emulating. Will they now?"

Universal Studios is spending an estimated $15 million to persuade Academy Award voters that its sanitized version of the life of mathematician John Nash was the best movie of 2001, and with so much at stake, perhaps it's not surprising that the Oscar race has turned nasty. Time provides a look at the various publicity campaigns, some of them using mainstream media and others based on whispers and lies to support various candidacies.

Last week, Conseco issued a pretty standard news release announcing that CFO Chuck Chokel was leaving the company to "pursue other interests," a phrase designed to obscure the fact that an individual has been fired, while causing the minimum embarrassment. The individual in question is supposed to feel soothed by the language, while reporters are support to be alerted to the fact that he wasn't performing to the expected standard. What makes Chokel's departure interesting is that a few days later Conseco CEO Gary Wendt followed up with a letter to shareholders, prompted by the fact that, "In the absence of a detailed explanation, it seems that 'the market' fills the vacuum with rumor and misinformation. The stories I hear are irrational and even nutty." He goes on to "confess to being somewhat old fashioned. I have never been reluctant to make a tough decision. But, I don’t think it is necessary to deal with people in a hurtful way. When we said essentially nothing about Chuck’s departure, I assumed the meaning would be clear. But in the current environment that was a bad assumption.... Chuck did not resign. His employment was terminated. I let him go because I did not believe that he was up to the job." Plain talk! The times really are a-changing.

In the wake of the Enron scandal, this would seem to be a good time for anyone propogating the idea that poor unfortunate American corporations are being cowed into submission by all powerful activist groups to lie low for a little while. It's a worldview that just doesn't jibe with reality. But Nick Nichols, principal of crisis PR firm Nichols-Dezenhall, has a book to peddle, so he has to try to make the case for big business as the underdog in the public affairs realm, as he did recently at a conference sponsored by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which specializes in shrill, "the-sky-is-falling" hysteria. As reported at TomPaine.com, Nichols suggested that environmentalists, "behave like guerillas: they are predatory, powerful, insatiable, rich and global." Clearly, comparing your foes to terrorists has become the rhetorical flourish of choice these days for anyone who doesn't have rational argument on his or her side.

Time magazine wonders whether the wheels are coming off the Bush administration's public relations wagon, pointing to the recent mis-statement by Ari Fleischer blaming the peace process led by former President Bill Clinton for the latest round of violence in the Middle East (""Ari made a mistake," White House communications counselor Karen Hughes said later) as well as to Bush's now infamous "axis of evil" speech and—most critically—to Vice President Cheney's refusal to surrender notes of his energy task force meeting with corporate lobbyists. "The message machine [has thrown] a rod or perhaps three," says the magazine.

Want to do your bit to support the war effort? Then give up your home or small business to a needy Fortune 100 corporation. That's the underlying message of a bizarre editorial in the Toledo Blade, which castigates libertarians for protesting the use of eminent domain to force 83 property owners off their land to make way for a new Jeep plant. Jeep's parent Chrysler also managed to extort $280 million in state and city aid to stay in Toledo. Says the Blade, "What’s missing in the condemnation is what would have happened to Toledo, its economy, and its standard of living had a signature company like Jeep, one of the city’s largest suppliers of highly paid jobs, moved away." Chrysler begging for money from Toledo is like Donald Trump standing outside a factory in Flint with a tin cup in his hand, but that's not even the most egregious thing about the paper's editorial. (Anyone else suspect they get a lot of advertising revenue from Chrysler?) The worst part is this: "There are times when the good of the civic body requires individual sacrifice. That is why members of our military are dying in Afghanistan, and that is why some people sacrificed their homes and small businesses for the Jeep plant." In other words, it's the patriotic duty of the poor to give to the rich.

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