It’s been a busy week of accusations, gnashing of teeth, and protests of innocence.

The Middle East? No, I’m talking about the ongoing debate between bloggers and journalists on one side and public relations folks on the other.

Most bloggers (and many journalists) seem to assume that the only thing a PR does all day is dream up pitches and indiscriminately spam them to innocent victims.

If that we in fact what PR was all about then I’d have no problem writing off the entire profession as a blight on society.

Steve Yoder of the Wall Street Journal takes a good stab at explaining the roles of the PR person and why journalists benefit from having a public relations person acting as the go-between (as reported on Jon Greer’s blog).

Roles: Access, spokesperson, data provider/fact checker, fair commenter, tipster, educator, reality checker, advocate, storytelling aide.

This goes way beyond what seems to be the prevailing wisdom that only sees these roles: time-waster, spammer, ignorant slob.

Meryl Evans has pulled together a good collection of links to anti-PR posts, pro-PR defences and what she calls blogging wars. And Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz are planning a panel discussion June 1 to bring together the various sides in the ongoing flame war/bitch fest/angst-o-rama.

I’m losing track of whether the back-and-forth about annoying PR pitches and spammed news releases is on its fourth, fifth or sixth round. The debate will continue, hopefully with the occasional flash of understanding and open-mindedness.

Jon Greer link via Marshall Kirkpatrick.

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Phil Donohue on CBC Radio’s As It Happens, March 18, 2008:

The American people are. We elect leaders who talk touch, who say ‘Bring it on,’ instead of bringing help.

Every major daily paper in the United States was behind this war.

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The declaration of independence by Kosovo got its start in the Serbian civil war, when Kosovars employed a public relations agency and staged a fake massacre that was used by the NATO forces as a justification for the massive bombing campaign that gutted Serbia’s infrastructure, says retired Canadian General Lewis Mackenzie.

Mackenzie has been raising attention for several years about the

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What a schmozzle.

The recent uproar after the firing of an employee over her decision to give a free bite-sized snack to the young child of a customer lead the Tim Horton’s chain to unfire her.

The optics of firing a single mother for an act of kindness put the fast food chain in a bind.

Is this likely to set off a chain reaction of protests when some high school student has their hours cut to almost none for not agreeing to take on more shifts while studying for their mid-terms? Will others in McJobs lead a lobbying  campaign to raise awareness of the many indignities service industry employees endure?

Don’t count on it. The public backlash was specifically about the disproportionate response for a breach of company policy.

The Tim Horton’s chain’s head office rightly intervened to correct the overreaction by local management. If handing out a Timbit is against company policy, that’s what supervisor intervention is for. And written warnings that clearly spell out what behavior is expected in the future.

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If a little bit of advertiser involvement in podcasts is good, a lot is better, right?

No!

Let’s look at two business podcasts and how they treat their advertisers (or “sponsors”, if you want to pretend it’s not advertising).

On For Immediate Release, Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson talked openly about adding commentaries prepared and voiced by their sponsors.  This was a blessed relief from the canned ads they first tried, and also a step up from hearing a product endorsement from the hosts every episode.

Now their podcasts include a short bit of bumph from Ragan Communications, and an advertorial (oops, I meant to say “commentary”)from Custom Scoop. There’s generally useful information, some good advice. Best of all, the spots are brief enough to not spoil the listening experience.

Contrast that with Joseph Jaffe’s podcast sponsorship by the U.S. Postal Service’s Deliver Magazine.

After explaining to listeners how great the partnership was going to be, Jaffe started running infomercials on his Jaffe Juice podcast (formerly known as Across the Sound). These 4-5 minute corporate think pieces are written and voiced by the client. Think Troy McClure  and you’ve got the idea.

That’s bad enough, but then Jaffe devotes more podcast time to rehashing the paid commentary, expending what remains of his editorial credibility on a discussion about the advertorials.

Conversational marketing is one thing. Five minutes of “thought leadership” by a paying shill is not any kind of conversation I want to be part of.

Mercifully, the sponsorship is soon ending, so we can return to Jaffe explaining at length that he is breaking new ground by selling an interview on his podcast in exchange for some electronic gear.

But it’s okay, because he’s transparent about it, so no ethical boundaries are being violated, right?

Ack. Edward R. Murrow is not only rolling over in his grave, he’s jamming large spikes into his ears so he doesn’t have to listen any more.

During its relatively short history, journalism has established (and often broken) fairly clear rules about keeping the editorial function separate from the advertising function. That line is blurring in a lot of mainstream publications and shows, but at least there’s some attempt to distinguish between information chosen based on its news value, and messages designed to get you to buy a product.

Podcasting, in its infancy, doesn’t have a lot of rules about what should and shouldn’t be done. Some podcasters are choosing to keep ads separate from editorial. Others, not.

My patience for commercials tarted up as commentary tends to only last as long as the podcasters use humor or sincerity.

What doesn’t work for me is having someone explain to me in great detail that pseudo editorial content is much better because it’s conversational.

Those kinds of conversations usually end with me saying, “Sorry, we don’t respond to any telephone solicitations,” before hanging up my phone.

Sandwich board photo by Mike Coghlan, used under a Creative Commons licence. Photo of Joseph Jaffe by Paull Young, used under a Creative Commons licence.

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