Canscene) — Last month, a friend of mine in TV news assignment received an invitation to an event six minutes before it was due to happen some 35 minutes drive (on good traffic days) away from her Toronto TV station.

I ask you, was the so-called public relations consultant who issued the invitation responsible, or was the client, in this case a major Canadian bank, out to gain favourable media coverage for a charitable donation to an agency working on diversity matters?

One of the reasons I quit the pr business nearly 30 years ago and returned to journalism was the fact that inept competition was muddying the waters. The veterans of pr had a saying “all they need is a typewriter and a telephone and they’re in business.” The Canadian Public Relations Society had instituted an accreditation system, but it had no real teeth since it could not be legalized and thus not enforced.

Today, “all they need is a telephone, a computer and an internet connection.” These inept and inexperienced
practitioners fire off messages in the belief that their recipients are waiting with bated breath to get them — and jump to it!

I ask you!
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