You might have heard the story — reported by USA Today and given even more legs by Business Insider and several other outlets — about the big-PR firm execs who were “busted” doing, well, their job. Former CNBC news anchor Jim Goldman and former political columnist John Mercurio aren’t exactly saints, but the substance of the criticism of the two seems off-base.

Yes, it’s a crafty form of hardball to pitch stories that tear down a competitor rather than build up a client, but sometimes high-level PR can be a dirty game. (Fortunately, the type of work we do and clients we have at Fast Horse, we spend much more time on the friendly, positive side of things, and media relations is but a part of what we do.) And in refusing to disclose the company or organization for which they were working, the PR pros are definitely on the wrong side of the Public Relations Society of America’s code of ethics, if that sort of thing means anything to you (emphasis mine):

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION: Open communication fosters informed decision making in a democratic society.
Intent: To build trust with the public by revealing all information needed for responsible decision making.
Guidelines: A member shall:

• Be honest and accurate in all communications.
• Act promptly to correct erroneous communications for which the member is responsible.
• Investigate the truthfulness and accuracy of information released on behalf of those represented.
• Reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented.
• Disclose financial interest (such as stock ownership) in a client’s organization.
• Avoid deceptive practices.

But in the stories I read, neither of those items gets much criticism. Instead, the focus is on two points:

• the PR pros in question were spreading lies, and
• the PR pros’ position as “high-profile media figures,” as USA Today described them

On the lying: USA Today and Business Insider — and probably many of the other outlets rehashing this story — mention that these PR pros were spreading lies about Google in this “whisper campaign” (which, by the way, really just seems like a fairly standard media relations effort, albeit negative). “After Goldman’s pitch proved largely untrue, he subsequently declined USA TODAY’s requests for comment,” the paper wrote. But there’s no explanation of exactly what’s untrue or how that’s the case. Rather, it seems like they’re dealing information that’s highly debatable, information that makes accusations with some support but that isn’t quite proven. That’s a hell of a lot different than “untrue.”

On their positions as “high-profile media figures”: Remember my description from the second sentence of this post? “Former.” They’re both former high-profile media figures. They both now work for a giant, well-known PR firm. Therefore, it’s not a scandal to be caught shaping how a story unfolds in the media. In fact, it’s their job.

UPDATE at 10 a.m. on 5/12: Writing for the Daily Beast, Dan Lyons came up with an article on this matter that’s well-reported and clarifies much of the gray area around this story. Among other things, he found that Facebook is the unnamed client who hired the PR guns to take shots at Google, and he actually points out the specific claims USA Today called “untrue.” Quoting the blogger who initially exposed the PR guys’ efforts, they’re not really “untrue” so much as they are “making a mountain out of a molehill.” Again, big difference.

[photo courtesy of captainslack on Flickr]

From headlines of “Seth Godin is dead wrong” to “My deepest secret with Andersen Cooper and Jello” to “Lara Logan Has Two Small Children At Home. Is She Brave Or Irresponsible For Putting Herself In This Kind Of Danger?“, these headlines are designed to grab eyeballs.

The first two headlines? Think of them as a compilation, similar to memoir writing where a character is based on several actual friends. The last headline is “ripped” from HollywoodLife, a site described as “Your Celebrity News, Gossip & Style BFF.”

I somehow stumbled upon this blog while reading articles about the attacks to Lara Logan. Essentially, a mother of four questioned whether Lara Logan should be covering war scenes when she has two young children at home.

Leaving aside the feminist issues (would this question be asked of a male reporter with two small children?), these are the kind of debates that make me cringe in the blogging world. We’re delving into her personal life that should not be relevant to her professional experience. We’re taking our personal experiences and applying them to her circumstances.

Everyone is an expert. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone shares it, whether well-researched or not.

I can’t help, but think that this is the ugly side of blogging (unsolicited opinions on someone’s personal nightmare). Now the next question is whether by hopping into the fray and sharing my opinion and I just providing fuel to the fire? Probably.

There are constant debates about the ethics of blogging stemming from as early as 2001, whether bloggers are held to journalist standards, how to stop cyber bullying, creating a code of conduct. But it doesn’t seem to change the fact that people feel no barriers when discussing headlines, whether it involves a celebrity or a hapless passer-by.

Doesn’t the old axiom of “don’t blog about something you wouldn’t discuss to that person’s face” hold true? Perhaps this idea is small-minded and not indicative of where our society is heading? Perhaps this initial post spurned a host of conversations about the role of a professional mother in the public eye and this conversation was fruitful?

Clearly, I’m torn. Where do you weigh in?

We’ve had a few posts on the Peepshow recently discussing standards and ethics in journalism — and a story in The New York Times last week has me tackling the topic again.

Prior to last Monday night’s game between the New York Jets and New England Patriots, a piece from columnist William Rhoden appeared on the Times site depicting the Patriots as a franchise in decline. The headline touted, “The Day The Patriots Empire Began To Crumble” and the story proclaimed, “The shift has occurred: the Jets are in ascendancy, while New England is in retrograde.”

A few hours later, after the Patriots destroyed the Jets 45-3, the story was conveniently modified online at the same URL — softening the language – and perhaps softening the blow to Rhoden’s reputation.

The new headline read, “Patriots’ Romp Stirs Questions, and Not Just for Jets,” the “ascendancy/retrograde” line was gone and the story included caveats like “If New England does not win another title under Belichick – ”

After the fact, the Times said the first column was written for an earlier deadline and was revised for the later edition. I say nonsense. I’d buy that excuse if they were updating a report with late-breaking news, but why should a columnist get a do-over? Making bold statements is part of the job – a job that becomes pretty easy if a you’re allowed to revise the substance of an article to ensure you’re never on the wrong side of a prediction.

Making matters worse, the revised story included a note to readers that the column had been updated, “An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Bill Bellichick has three Super Bowl rings. He has five  – three with the Patriots and two with the Giants.” However, there was no mention whatsoever of any other modifications. As a topper, the note also spells Belichick wrong. Pretty sloppy.

So what do you think? Is this much ado about nothing or a violation journalistic integrity?

The Federal Trade Commission raised quite a stink a few months ago when it released its new guides governing endorsements and testimonials, which the commission itself said would “affect testimonial advertisements, bloggers [and] celebrity endorsements.”

I’m co-presenting at the next Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association event, a discussion about ethics around social media marketing. As you might imagine, this broad topic of endorsements and disclosure looms large. My wingman for this gig — Michael Fleming, a bright lawyer from Larkin Hoffman — sees a lot of people who are confused on the matter.

That confusion starts with people, like the writer of the TechDirt post I linked to above and so many others (myself included), mistaking the guides from the FTC as new “rules” or “laws” regulating marketing and advertising. I’m sure the FTC’s use of the word “governing” didn’t help the matter, but Fleming points out the FTC has issued guidelines, not regulations.

If you get taken to court, accused of not properly disclosing a financial relationship with a blogger, the FTC’s guidelines will be one of many factors the court would consider. That’s it. (I’ll leave it at that because I’m not a lawyer and I am more interested in getting to my point than in executing an exhaustive and precise legal discussion. But I welcome clarification or elaboration from Fleming or anyone else who knows more about the subject.)

Of course, those guidelines will have a fair amount of weight in court — more weight than you and your Twitter friends — but they’re not the same as laws. That revelation was a relief to me, as a marketer. I don’t envision a situation in which I’m likely to fall on the wrong side of these FTC guides, but it’s damn good to know that, beyond the questions these guides raise, there’s room for reason and, I presume, a chance to defend those who have acted in good faith. As Fleming told me, the courts will be the ultimate arbiter on matters of what’s right and wrong here, not the FTC, and marketers have some room to learn more and make a case before the legal hammer comes crashing down on anyone.

I told you all of that mumbo-jumbo to tell you this: There’s a lot of trail left to blaze in the world of blogger relations, endorsements, product sample-sending and the like, and it’s going to be a while before we have some case law and some case studies to provide direction more concrete than “use your best judgment.”

PRNewser points out an interesting comment from a New York Times story about “mommy blogs.” From PRNewser:

…Tiffany Romero [is] co-founder of Secret is in the Sauce, a community of 5,000 female bloggers. Romero recently told attendees at a conference to let PR firms know that they don’t work for free.”Your time and your experience and your audience are worth something…It’s capitalism, plain and simple,” she said. The gist: we expect to be rewarded when we write about your product or company. Whether or not disclosure is a part of the exchange, the comments are an alarming recommendation.

I don’t consider it alarming. I consider it insightful. When conducting media or blogger outreach, a marketer’s job is not to “get the client free coverage.” The job is to understand what makes a reporter, blogger, editor, producer or whomever tick, to know how you can help her do her job, and to know how her interests align with those of your client.

Sometimes we work with people whose job is to report news and interesting developments in an industry and meeting a deadline or filling some column inches. Sometimes that job — or maybe it’s a “job” — is sharing stuff that’s intriguing on a much more personal level for the writer and, with any luck, feeding a family in the process. In the latter case, there’s no reason to be alarmed by the idea of bloggers desiring to make money.

If they refuse to make the appropriate disclosures, don’t work with them. If you’re not comfortable with money changing hands, you’ll have little trouble finding other bloggers to work with — assuming you have information worthy of their attention. There’s no need for any sort of James Bond stuff, sneaking around in the dark with some shady characters. And if openly disclosed pay-per-post coverage is something you’re interested in, go for it. It sounds like Tiffany Romero has some friends you can talk to.

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As long as cameras have been small enough to stuff inside a duffel bag, a suitcase or a pocket, they’ve been used to expose actions people would probably rather have kept private. In most of those cases, there’s a PR team somewhere working hard to earn their paychecks — or perhaps reconsidering their career paths.

A recent video from Mercy for Animals is the next in a long line of hidden-camera exposés in which the struggle between big business and little animals is thrust into the sunlight. MFA has made a splash with its hidden-camera video from a hatchery in Iowa. (WARNING: It’s incredibly unpleasant to watch, no matter your feelings on the matter of raising animals for food. Seriously.) Among other nastiness, the video depicts the hatchery’s young male birds being tossed into a grinder, meeting their immediate demise.

Happy Monday.

There’s an important communication lesson here. For PR pros who might one day find themselves in a position of needing to defend some ethically questionable practices, this illustrates the importance of planning for a crisis. You need to be prepared to respond. You might not predict a hidden-camera exposé of your factory practices, but you have to be able to predict what your biggest detractors might say about your organization. And on a personal level, you have to be prepared to defend your organization.

But defending your organization doesn’t mean sticking your fingers in your ears and ignoring criticism. If you want to be more than a mouthpiece — if you want to be a true counselor — you need to serve as an arbiter of sorts between your organization and its various publics. (In using the plural form of the word “public,” I’ve triggered vivid flashbacks to reading PR textbooks. Wild.) Your organization has a story to tell, but your detractors probably have some valid points. Making meaningful, deliberate changes to your operations in response could have the dual benefits of easing detractors’ minds while improving your organization’s public perception, safety record, ethical standing or even bottom line.

In this particular case, the owners of the hatchery might point out that extreme measures like closing up shop and going vegan — which MFA hints at near the end of its video — is neither the only solution nor the best solution. The owners of the hatchery might avoid, though, saying things like “Hey, it used to be worse!” That’s beside the point and won’t satisfy anyone. If they wanted to be bold and more direct, they could point out that these male chicks are going to die now or die later on their way to the grocery store’s refrigerator section. So is killing them now so bad?

For more discussion on this topic, please go read Bill Sledzik’s post on the matter — and his readers’ comments. Bill is a PR professor at Kent State in Ohio, and he brings a smart, sharp perspective to this issue (and so many others).

Photo courtesy of ceanandjen on Flickr

New York Times reporter David Rohde had been taken captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan seven months ago and — thank the deity of your choosing — he recently escaped and found his way to safety. That’s wonderful news.

Speaking of news, I would have guessed this gentleman’s capture itself would have qualified as news. The Times, however, thinks not, as it kept the story under wraps for the full seven months.

As NPR reports, “Out of concern for the reporter’s safety, The Times asked other major news organizations to do the same; NPR was among dozens of news outlets that did not report on the kidnapping at the urging of Rohde’s colleagues.”

In that NPR story, Melissa Block interviews Kelly McBride, who teaches ethics to journalists at the Poynter Institute. McBride tells NPR:

I find it a little disturbing because it makes me wonder what else 40 international news organizations have agreed not to tell the public. … I don’t think we [as journalists] do ourselves any favors long term for our credibility when we have a total news blackout on something that’s clearly of interest to the public.

More troubling for me, though, is McBride’s closing argument: “What’s so scary about this is, if it hadn’t been a journalist, I wonder if they would have made the decisions that they made.”

Whenever a ship captain gets snatched up by gun-toting pirates or a contractor working abroad is taken hostage by some militant types, those hostages’ names and faces are unavoidable. (Goes to show what an impact cable news can still have.) But when it’s one of their own, these major media outlets are quick to clam up in the name of protection.

Are these other hostages, the ones publicly identified so quickly, not in harm’s way? Does that sound hypocritical and a little scary to anyone other than me and Poynter’s McBride?

Photo courtesy of Tomas Munita/New York Times