I like some PR firms but i know others are scumbags. Edelman is apparently one of the good ones.
From its homepage come a few words i would gladly appropriate for RedMonk.
Independent thinking means making one’s own judgments.
Edelman is the only independent global PR firm. We service clients, not Wall Street. No one owns us, so we are free to think. Independently. To listen, question and evaluate with an open mind unrestrained by conventional wisdom – and then decide for ourselves.
Or as i like to say, you can buy our thinking but you can’t buy our opinion.
Richard Edelman, the firm’s CEO, deserves props for calling out Ketchum recently on his blog. He says:
We are paid for our time and our counsel, not for specific number of insertions in the media. We have a responsibility to tell the truth, to foster dialogue and to reveal funding sources. We cannot tolerate any arrangement that envisages payment for placement. To do otherwise completely undermines the essence of our position as honest advocate and eliminates the separation of church and state for the media. Why bother reading the editorial copy if it is purchased in the same way as the advertising?
We have a license to operate only on the basis of these precious tenets. We should operate in the “smart zone” (phrase coined by my friend Tony Long of World Wildlife Fund) where we are above the legal minimum standard and beyond the minimum expectation of society.
It has to be inspiring to his staff to see the moral leadership here. There are risks involved – now ethics is something Edelman can be called on. it needs to be cleaner than clean. But in a world of astro-turfing its good to see someone at least talking the talk.
One thing Rick – your permalinks are broken?
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