What is the lesson to be learned from this?  To me, the lesson is that communication, including PR. communication, has its limits.  You cannot fool the consumer all the time.  There has to be some substance for any image-building to become meaningful.           

This is another way of saying that PR. and communication should be fundamentally honest if they are to be effective.  What is done must not only be transparent, but must be seen to be transparent. 

Where transparency is not exercised, it means there is something somewhere to hide.  That will eventually affect image-building adversely. 

That goes for the publishing industry as well.  Which brings me to the other point I mentioned – what happens when transparency is overtaken by the profit motive.         

Transparency is openness and honesty.  When those values are given the go-by, we get a lack of openness, a lack of honesty.  In any profession a lack of honesty can only produce unfortunate consequences.  The publishing industry has suffered such consequences. 

Begging your indulgence, I must put the blame on the PR. industry for the first organized attempt to corrupt the publishing industry. 

Thus we saw the phenomenon of some newspaper companies, at the corporate level, deciding to dilute journalism for the sake of the bottom line.           

That exercise took many forms in many companies.  What became something of a scandal was paid-for “news items.”   That is, advertisers announcements and publicity material presented to readers disguised as news items, while the readers do not know that the company has collected money for the publication of those items.  This became a scandal because it violated all the known principles of journalism. 

In my profession, and in yours, credibility is everything.  Our self-interest, if nothing else, demands that we recognize this and do what we can do regain our credibility, our professional dignity.