Posted on Seasoned Posts

The green power of public relations

I’ve asked Caroline Wilson to share some thoughts on the power of PR to change people’s behaviour around environmental issues, which she regularly explores at GoodGreenPR: I sometimes think the ‘green’ issue for people working in PR is very similar to the familiar debate about the role of PR generally.  Should PR be about skilfully promoting and communicating the image, products and community profile that others high up the management tree set out?  Or should PR...

Posted on Seasoned Posts

New Zealand Police open up law-making to the public

As a follow-on to the posts regarding Madeleine, the Portuguese police and the public interest, I thought you might be interested in a real life ‘open conversation’ involving New Zealand police. They have created a wiki to encourage public participation in the revision of the current police act, written in 1958.

Posted on Seasoned Posts

What is ‘the public interest’?

A run on the Northern Rock bank in the UK this week got me thinking about ‘the public interest’ again, especially after Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England told a House of Commons select committee that he would have preferred to give covert aid to Northern Rock, without the public being aware of the Bank’s intervention, but that would be illegal.

Posted on Seasoned Posts

How Philip Morris uses public relations to change the regulatory environment of the tobacco industry… Ann Landman exposes an apparently effective plan

Recently, an articulate and highly informative article by Ann Landman appeared on pr watch. Although quite critical and explicitly biased, it details Philip Morris’s current public relations activities to modify existing regulation of the tobacco industry in the United States, and (I believe) provides a most interesting backstage analysis of our profession—very stimulating food for thought for all of us.