Op-Ed

The Battle Between O'Dwyer and PRSA

by Anne Landman — October 10, 2011 - 7:32pm
  • Topics: Corporations, Ethics, Public Relations
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    Jack O'DwyerThe Public Relations Society of America, the trade group for the American public relations industry, and Jack O'Dwyer, who has specialized in reporting on the PR industry for over 40 years, are at war, and the battle is getting heated -- and harmful for PRSA.

    Why should people care about this obscure fight? Because the conflict is a microcosm of the battle against the unethical and harmful PR trends that are hurting this country.

    O'Dwyer's company, Inside News of Public Relations and Marketing Communications, publishes a monthly magazine, a daily blog, a weekly newsletter, and an annual ranking of PR firms that together have earned O'Dwyer a level of notoriety in the PR field. An article in the August 31, 2011 issue of Forbes magazine even called Jack O'Dwyer a "rather legendary" figure in the PR world. What makes O'Dwyer's publications unique is that they cover the PR industry from a journalistic standpoint, free from the one-sided, "rah-rah" boosterism that is the hallmark of most trade journals. O'Dwyer covers the PR industry, warts and all. He doesn't shy away from drawing attention to instances when PR professionals cross ethical lines. Thus O'Dwyer is one of the few people covering the PR industry who calls out bad behavior, as well as praising successes.

    Like PRWatch, and an increasing cadre of PR veterans including investor relations pioneer Ted Pincus, who recently passed away, and the Center for Media and Democracy's own Senior Fellow on Health Care, Wendell Potter, O'Dwyer has been an open critic of the covert way many PR professionals have been operating over the last few decades.

    At its inception, the PR industry was supposed to be a helping profession dedicated to fostering an honest, two-way dialogue between companies and the public, to help them better understand each other. As we at PRWatch have, Jack has observed that over the decades PR professionals have become increasingly manipulative and unethical, employing tactics to purposely hide the truth from the public, like establishing corporate front groups, commissioning purposely biased research and favorable opinions, and working through third parties to help alter public opinion. To further thwart journalists, corporate PR pros now increasingly require that any contact from the press and media be restricted to email only, so conversations can be managed by a company's legal and financial offices. The list of problems like this with the PR industry as a whole is long and growing, and O'Dwyer has been among those who have openly criticized this type of deterioration of PR.

    As the Industry Goes, So Goes Its Trade Group

    In the last few years, O'Dwyer has also started criticizing the industry's trade group, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), for mimicking this bad behavior by making moves that further obscure how PR professionals operate. O'Dwyer has openly objected to a host of PRSA's new practices, like the group's recent change to using listen-only teleconferences, where participants aren't allowed to speak. PRSA also adopted a policy prohibiting anyone at its meetings from recording presentations or taking photos. O'Dwyer also reports that in 2005, PRSA stopped issuing transcripts of their assemblies. All of these policies combined make it much more difficult to report on the group's activities.

    O'Dwyer's list of grievances against PRSA -- and the above are only a fraction of them -- has made PRSA retaliate against O'Dwyer. PRSA started charging O'Dwyer a fee of $1,275 for each reporter his company sent to cover their conferences, while the giving out free passes to reporters from other publications that cover the PR trade, like PR News and PR Newser. PRSA also started confining O'Dwyer to the back of the room at their meetings, where it is difficult to hear speakers or sometimes identify who is speaking. When O'Dwyer asked for hearing assistance equipment to help him follow the proceedings, he was denied -- twice.

    O'Dwyer's reporting provides the public with a window into the PR industry's activities. Blocking the public from being able to observe how PR professionals operate -- which is what PRSA is doing by denying Jack O'Dwyer credentials to cover to its meetings -- is the wrong way to react to criticism. Why? Because, in part, O'Dwyer's complaints against the PR industry, and now by extension to PRSA, are not just his own. They reflect the concerns of many PR industry watchers who see how modern changes in this industry further hide from the public how corporations operate, and are harming this country in ways American society has not seen before.

    Moreover, PRSA's retaliatory moves against O'Dwyer's are more appropriate for a sandbox brawl than for PR professionals. PRSA's action to shut out O'Dwyer only confirm that PRSA is going the same way as the PR industry as a whole: towards more secrecy and obscurity from the public. That's one big, ominous omen for the country.

    Preventing Jack O'Dwyer from covering their meeting -- even if O'Dwyer has criticized them roundly and asked questions they really don't like -- is a shameful and petty way for PRSA to deal with his critiques. It is also violation of freedom of the press that will damage PRSA's image long into the future.

    Updated at 6:15 a.m. MDT

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    Further PRSA Response re Our Letter to Mr. O'Dwyer

    Submitted by Keith Trivitt (not verified) on October 12, 2011 - 11:54am.

    As a follow-up to our remarks from yesterday in which we pointed out several inaccuracies and falsehoods in your reporting, Ms. Landman, we think it is also worth noting the following:

    Apparently, Jack O'Dwyer is so embarrassed by and ashamed of the reasons why he's been denied credentials that he's removed our letter to him, and replaced it with more of his screed. I refer specifically to this URL: http://www.odwyerpr.com/site_images/PRSA-Bill-of-Particulars.pdf

    Notice, the URL ends with the wording “PRSA Bill of Particulars,” which refers to the 23-page letter we sent to Mr. O’Dwyer detailing his multiple egregious and unethical acts against PRSA, our members and those associated with our organization, but it now redirects to a February 1995 recap from “O’Dwery’s PR Services Report.”

    What kind of transparency is that? He and PRWatch should practice what they preach.

    Keith Trivitt
    Associate Director, Public Relations
    Public Relations Society of America

    Seriously Misguided Criticism

    Submitted by Derek DeVries (not verified) on October 12, 2011 - 9:55am.

    This criticism of PRSA is misguided and omits a great deal of important context in the conflict between O'Dwyer and the organization. As a supporter of the CMD and PR Watch, I urge the organizations to reconsider backing Jack O'Dwyer and listing him as a staff member.

    I wrote more on my blog (as your comment platform does not appear to permit HTML coding so I couldn't embed links to evidence):

    PR Watch Bungles Criticism of PRSA With Error- and Omission-Riddled Attack
    October 12, 2011 | Derek DeVries

    More: http://wp.me/pAjU4-oz

    You can embed links,

    Submitted by Mutternich on October 13, 2011 - 10:52am.

    but you have to type in the HTML tags manually around the URL to make the link clickable.

    Almost as easy for the viewer: up-to-date Windows browsers allow the viewer go to a non-embedded URL in the text simply by highlighting the URL, right-clicking on it to bring up the context menu, then choosing "open link in new tab." I viewed Imprudent Loquaciousness that way.

    PRSA

    Submitted by Dissembled Consent (not verified) on October 11, 2011 - 4:23pm.

    "At its inception, the PR industry was supposed to be a helping profession dedicated to fostering an honest, two-way dialogue between companies and the public, to help them better understand each other."? Not according to Edward Bernays

    Regarding Bernays & Ethics

    Submitted by TR Morris, APR (not verified) on August 27, 2013 - 10:47am.

    While Edward Bernays revolutionized the way public relations was practiced in the 1920s and beyond, he also used tactics that are now considered unethical. I use examples of his tactics as "what not to do" with my students who are the next generation of ethical public relations practitioners.

    O'Dwyer and PRSA

    Submitted by Elisabeth Handler (not verified) on October 11, 2011 - 9:31am.

    Thanks for the insightful article! I am considering giving up my 30-year PRSA membership specifically because I'm so apalled at the hypocrisy of a PR association at war with its most attentive media observer.

    BTW, Jack O'Dwyer is a Member of the PRWatch Staff

    Submitted by Arthur Yann (not verified) on October 11, 2011 - 9:25am.

    Ms. Landman,

    One additional — albeit highly salient — point. You also willfully omitted from your article the fact that Jack O'Dwyer is a member of the PRWatch staff, as outlined on this page: http://www.prwatch.org/staff-profiles.

    You, yourself, may want to visit the Society of Professional Journalists website (www.spj.org) and study its Code of Ethics (http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp). It states very clearly that journalists should "act independently," "free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know" and "avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived."

    Arthur Yann
    Vice President, Public Relations
    The Public Relations Society of America

    You are incorrect, Mr. Yann

    Submitted by Anne Landman on October 14, 2011 - 12:45am.

    Mr. O'Dwyer has been an unpaid occasional contributor to PRW, but has never been a paid staff member. Here is how you made your mistake: Since we don't allow anonymous posts on PRW, in order to identify Mr. O'Dwyer as the author when we re-post his articles (instead of having our program listi him as "anonymous,") we had to create a profile for him on PRW with a brief description. This is how he ended up on our "Staff" page. It was the only way we could provide our readers with a description of him.

    Nice try, though, Mr. Yann.

    But even in he was a paid staff member, my opinion would remain the same about PRSA policies that move the organization towards being more obscure and secretive -- the same direction that corporate PR in general is moving.

    People Who Live in Glass Houses, Ms. Landman

    Submitted by Arthur Yann (not verified) on October 19, 2011 - 9:36am.

    Ms. Landman,

    I would like to suggest that you and PRWatch get your acts together, before you begin casting aspersions on PRSA and the entire public relations profession.

    I never said Mr. O'Dwyer was a "paid" staff member, only a staff member. I believe anyone might reasonably assume that, given his inclusion on your staff page at the link I provided (ostensibly, I'm now being asked to believe, among your various "paid" and "unpaid" contributors, though you make no delineation between the two).

    I also find it curious that you've since removed Mr. O'Dwyer's profile from that page. Is his anonymity no longer the concern that it was just eight days ago?

    (By the way, if his name is included on his post, how is it that the post is anonymous? And how does including his non-paid staff profile among your paid-staff profiles, without noting which is which, make him less anonymous than, say, including his name on his post?)

    So I believe the mistake, Ms. Landman, is entirely yours (nice try indeed). Of course, your bigger mistake is championing a journalist whom the Society of Professional Journalists invited to resign his membership. How ironic and convenient that you attack public relations ethics, while turning a blind eye to journalistic ethics, including your own.

    If you or any of your readers are truly concerned why PRSA approaches Mr. O'Dwyer in the manner we do, I'd encourage you to ask Mr. O'Dwyer for a copy of our 23-page letter that outlines our concerns with his professional conduct, and to publish it on your site, so that all can better understand the context in which our decisions are made. We won't even demand that you include our profiles on your staff page.

    Frankly, Ms. Landman, if PRWatch were a public relations firm, PRSA and its 32,000 members would be speaking out against the disingenuous and unethical practices your organization employs itself, as it masks its own actions behind a holier-than-though claim to the moral high ground.

    Arthur Yann is vice president of public relations at PRSA.

    Protesting WAY too much

    Submitted by Anne Landman on October 19, 2011 - 12:58pm.

    Mr. O'Dwyer has never been a paid or unpaid staff member of PRWatch.org. CMD recently updated the staff list to be more accurate, since you drew it to our attention that it was inaccurate. Our system automatically lists authorship of "Anonymous" for people writing for PRWatch who are not entered into our staff list. We listed Mr. O'Dwyer to permit us to correctly attribute authorship of a piece he had written that we re-posted.

    Sorry, but nothing nefarious there. Just trying to deal with the limitations of software.

    And I've read the 23 page letter, and it is just overdone as your comments here. The letter, just like your comments here, avoids addressing the questions Mr. O'Dwyer are I are asking, and our concerns that PRSA is following the PR profession by hiding more of its operations from the public and increasingly operating unethically. Why are you unwilling to disclose the names of PRSA members, even to other members? Why are you trying to limit public knowledge about how PRSA operates? Why are you trying to limit input from PRSA members by using listen-only teleconferences? Why won't you disclose the salary of your group's CEO? Why won't you freely allow the public to cover the proceedings of your meetings? What does PRSA have to hide?

    I haven't seen answers to any of these questions in your responses.
    Those are the questions we'd like to have answered.