Day: June 10, 2002

Update: When PR people let down their industry

Bivings Group have an interesting op-ed on blogging on their web-site. Now that’s interesting…

When PR people let down their industry

A recent story in the Guardian further implicates PR in underhand dealings and stupidity. According to the piece The Bivings Group was retained by Monsanto to undertake a ‘smear’ campaign against the Nature Magazine’s paper on GM Maize in Mexico. Accordingly our friends at the Bivings Group invented aliases and posted to Internet mailing lists.

Now it turns out there are some real, justifiable issues with the findings of the report. But rather than tackle the concerns, Biving’s ‘pseudonyms’ criticized it online.

Then when the Bivings Group were accused by a journalist from the UK Guardian of posting online they agressively denied it – even though it’s clear the postings in question were made by computers from the Bivings Group. More mud slung in our industry’s direction, more lying and more damage to the credibility of every PR professional. Well done all involved, you’ve certainly made our jobs easier and our reputation stronger…not.
(Some more opinion from Brian Kane’s weblog)