Op-Ed

The Battle Between O'Dwyer and PRSA

by Anne Landman — October 10, 2011 - 6:32pm
  • 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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    PR secretiveness: an example

    Submitted by Mutternich on October 14, 2011 - 9:46am.

    http://stateimpact.npr.org/new-hampshire/2011/10/13/2505/

    Q: So for my post, can you tell me a little bit about GMO?

    A: Sure. It’s a $100 billion institutional money management firm.

    Q: Do they only invest in land, or do they have a wider portfolio?

    A: They invest in a variety of different things.

    Q: Great. Thank you.

    At this point, I was getting ready to hang up when he piped-up with:

    A: I’d rather not be quoted on any of this.

    Q: Wait…what? You don’t want to be quoted declining to comment or describing the company?

    A: No."

    Correction

    Submitted by Anne Landman on October 11, 2011 - 8:55am.

    The article was updated shortly after publication to correct the error regarding the identity of William "Bill" Murray. A person of the same name did work in tobacco industry PR, however this is not the same person who now heads PRSA. We regret the error.

    PRSA Responds

    Submitted by Arthur Yann (not verified) on October 11, 2011 - 7:51am.

    Ms. Landman,

    We find it curious that you or another member of your organization deleted the factual "reporting" error contained in the original version of this article — confusing former Philip Morris employee and tobacco lobbyist R. William "Bill" Murray with PRSA COO William M. Murray — without noting that you had updated/corrected the original text. Not only is this a social media faux pas, it also smacks of the manipulative tactics that you so willingly ascribe to PRSA and the public relations profession. Certainly you would agree that a forthright acknowledgment of mistakes is the province of ethical communications and journalism?

    For the record, the William Murray who heads PRSA also did not star in the movies "Caddy Shack" or "Stripes," though the amount of research you apparently did in preparing this article certainly classifies as "Meatballs." (By the way, you might want to delete mention of R. William "Bill" Murray's PRSA service on this page, as well: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=R._William_%22Bill%22_Murray. But, maybe you already did that, without telling anyone.

    For your readers who did not see the original version of this article, below is the paragraph in question:

    "It's of even greater concern considering that the group's current president is R. William "Bill" Murray, who worked as the top public relations and lobbying specialist for the tobacco industry for twenty years. Murray worked for Philip Morris, and was responsible for many of that company's later activities to camouflage, deny and corrupt the scientific and medical findings that cigarettes caused lung cancer, heart disease and a host of other serious conditions. Murray's background is not exactly conducive to openness and honesty with the public, but it may be helpful in understanding where PRSA's combative stance towards O'Dwyer is coming from."

    The other glaring errors (willful omissions?) from your article include the fact that PRSA sent Mr. O'Dwyer a fully footnoted, 23-page letter outlining the reasons why he has been denied credentials to cover our Leadership Assembly and International Conference, which you and your readers may find here: http://www.odwyerpr.com/site_images/PRSA-Bill-of-Particulars.pdf.

    Further, our Leadership Assembly and International Conference are open to — and will be attended by — a variety of reputable journalists and bloggers. Finally, this "rather legendary" figure at whose altar you appear to worship also has been called "a public relations gadfly" by The New York Times. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

    We believe that Mr. O'Dwyer's behavior, like yours, falls well outside the ethical standards espoused by the Society of Professional Journalists. Perhaps you believe, as he does, that such tactics are fair game. However, there are two sides to every story, and it would behoove you to pick up the phone (or visit a website) once in a while in an effort to determine the facts and report on them in a balanced, responsible manner.

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

    Great PR letter

    Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on October 11, 2011 - 12:05pm.

    It's no surprise that this letter comes from a PR firm. What a waste of talent. People can make up their own minds as to what they consume. This is an industry that the world could do without, you wouldn't be so secretive if what you are doing is ethical. It's seems that you just don't want to let out the tricks that you've been using to fool people.

    Correction and response

    Submitted by Anne Landman on October 11, 2011 - 8:59am.

    I regret the error regarding the confusion over two PR professionals with the same name. It has been corrected.

    Notwithstanding your 23 page letter of complaints about Mr. O'Dwyer, which I have seen, my opinion about policies that further increase the obscurity of PR operations and make it more difficult to for the public to cover the PR industry remain the same.