It was a rough week in public relations last week. The New York Times let a business owner rant on their blog, TechCrunch took a stab at a PR professional, and Jeremy Pepper, Mack Collier, Shannon Paul, and I debated a PR vs. publicity Quora question on Beth Harte’s Facebook wall.

When we started Spin Sucks, it was with the idea that we would be able to publicly promote all of the good work the PR industry does and help to change perception that we’re all snakeoil salesmen. But, as of late, it seems everyone is highlighting the really bad professionals in our field (aren’t there bad professionals in every field?) from stray hashtag tweets and advertising gone wrong to fake personas and astroturfing. All is amiss and we only have ourselves to blame. (more…)