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Consumer Reports WebWatch and the Center for Media Democracy recently launched Full Frontal Scrutiny. They explain it this way.

Astroturfing, by the way, is basically the idea explained here – “fake grassroots.” Clever, right?

I am not always aligned with the Center for Media Democracy, which occasionally has a view that’s a bit too narrow and negative for my tastes. However, this is an excellent idea. Ethical public relations practitioners don’t do this. And they tell clients who suggest it, “no.” I have. It’s not easy. But I have.

This is particularly timely with the upcoming election season.

What do you think?

Image: Corbis

I was lucky enough, very early in my career to be trusted by a colleague to help manage the crisis communication of a very serious incident. I’ve since been fascinated by crisis communication and hope that I have the opportunity to help other organizations during my career to survive and even thrive after a crisis.

Shel Holtz has an outstanding primer for crisis communications. If you’re truly interested in public relations as a management function, you have to understand crisis and how to successfully communicate though it.

I highly recommend this post. Take a look.

Cross-posted from my PR Campaigns Class Blog.

Neil Tortorella at BODO (Business of Design Online) dishes out marketing and PR advice for designers on this blog. Often his advice is good for students, entrepreneurs of all sorts and anyone looking to build their career or their business.

Because of the service learning approach in our classes at that School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon, students often work with nonprofits or very small businesses that have little experience with public relations and no one in house who manages the organizations’ communication.

That results in students serving not only as technicians who carry out tasks, but as a consultants to their clients. And that, my friends, is good practice for the real world.

Clients, bosses, boards of directors may think they know what they need, but rather than just fulfill pre-determined tasks and move on, Neil has this suggestion:

Ask a boat load of questions. Get to know your clients’ businesses, their competitive arena, their industry, their audience. In essence, learn all the gory details and become a partner in their success. Then, put on your consultant cap and get to thinking. What would help them out? What ideas can you offer up?

Read the rest of the post here.

image:corbis

I love nice paper. And I have what some might call an obsession with pens – no ball point pens in my bag or on my desk; gel and roller balls only. My current favorite is the Tul line from Office Max.

Well, according to Unity Marketing (via MediaPost), consumers age 25 – 35 are the biggest consumers of luxury stationery products. From the report:

“The generational shift in the market for stationery is bringing dramatic changes in the marketplace,” the report says. “Suddenly specialty retailers like Crane & Co. Paper Makers, Papyrus, Kate’s Paperie and Paperchase found in Borders stores nationwide are destination shops for young people to pursue their paper passion.”

Understanding trends such as this is important in your work in public relations. Of course, if you worked with a luxury stationery company, the application of this particular trend would be obvious (I hope). If you don’t, look around… what are the trends in your industry? or in the industry in which you hope to work?

St. Petersburg Times & CQ.com have launched PolitiFact, a service that rates the claims of the political candidates with a Truth-O-Meter.

Not sure about what you’re hearing from candidates? Seem a little too… something?

Apparently Guiliani has made the claim that he’s among the top 4 or 5 most well-known people in the United States. Yeah… he’s not. He’s #10, rating him in the “pants on fire” category of the Truth-O-Meter.

My other favorite in the pants on fire category is Joe Biden’s claim that President Bush is brain dead. Apparently, not literally.

The Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, has launched a microsite devoted to the issue of toy safety – NotInMyCart.org.

The site features a parody animated music video that is poking fun, without placing blame, at the overwhelmed federal toy safety inspectors.

As a parent, toy safety is no laughing matter. But this parody does a terrific job of helping me understand what the problem is. And the site tells me what I actions I can take to make toys safer.

In the Heath brothers’ book, Made to Stick, one of the criteria for sticky messages is unexpectedness. This video does a great job of creating a sticky message about a very complicated and emotionally-laden subject. I watched the video once and can recall some of the key information presented (thanks to the catchy tune!).

What do you think? Good idea? or inappropriate?

Thanks to Geoff Livingston at Buzz Bin, you can find all the posts related to the measurement thread that both Tiffany Derville and I participated in last month.

Brilliant! I’ll be using these.

From Arrive Alive, a South African road safety organization. These adhesives could be found on the floors and walls of bathroom bars. I think they are pretty remarkable. My partner said, “I don’t get it. What does that have to do with drinking and driving?”

I wonder how effective these are?

The PR blogosphere hosts many ranking services. Top 150 this, top 100 that. These are excellent places to start when you’re new to the blogosphere or looking for something new to read and I check them out on a regular basis.

One I had not heard of before, PRVoices, has it’s own ranking which is a “social ranking.” According to PR Voices, I’m #39. I’m not sure what this means, but it’s still pretty cool.

PRVoices’ list is a good one. Lots of good bloggers, and regardless of the methods used to compile the list, I’m in good company. So we’ll see if PRVoices launches me into PR blogging superstardom.

Image: Corbis