Day: January 22, 2003

THE FOUNDATION FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS has conducted a study of 115 major US companies and found that ninety eight percent of CEOs took part in some political activity in the last year. A particularly alarming finding was that over twenty five percent of the companies surveyed had no crisis management team in place! Read more here.

IN OTHER NEWS, OVER NINETEEN Public Relations organizations (yep that’s nineteen) have come together to urge corporate America to take steps to restore the much damaged element of trust.

The nineteen organizations are: Arthur W. Page Society, Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, Corporate Communication Institute at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Council of Communication Management, Council of Public Relations Firms, Global Public Affairs Institute, Institute for Public Relations, IPR’s Commission on Measurement & Evaluation, International Association of Business Communicators, IABC Research Foundation, International Public Relations Association, National Investor Relations Institute, National School Public Relations Association, Public Affairs Council, Public Relations Society of America, PRSA Counselors Academy, PRSA Foundation, Women Executives in Public Relations, Foundation of WEPR.

The press release is here. You can find the URL’s yourself! 🙂

There’s a story on the UK-based HR Gateway website about how PR can’t hide poor HR practice.

The story is in advance of a free e-book being offered by Nicola Hunt on “Communications & HR” which is being released on February 3rd.

Following on from the story I posted about PR men slipping money to politicians in return for favors, a “PR” consultant (the BBC’s description not mine) has been found guilty of insider trading in the UK. The consultant, Tim Blackstone, has enjoyed a number of “customer service” positions during his career as a former journalist with the UK Sunday Times and a porn actor.

According to the BBC story, Mr Blackstone was fined �1,000, ordered to pay �16,000 prosecution costs and told to hand over the �3,000 profit he had made on the shares.

Last year the Hurwitz Group closed it’s doors, the highest profile casualty in the technology research business.

Today news reaches us that Forrester Research has purchased Giga Group. More detail at Computerworld.