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Jour­nal­ism and PR are NOT the same thing. They are nearly the oppo­site. One is unbi­ased, the other is extremely biased. I do real­ize that the lines are being blurred, but we need to keep some sort of integrity in order to main­tain trust in what we read. Objec­tiv­ity is impor­tant.

We need dis­clo­sure, we need hon­esty and we need trans­parency. What we don’t need are posts like this from a local, young PR “pro” who hap­pens to moon­light as a jour­nal­ist and praises her peers when act­ing as a journo. It destroys trust, calls into ques­tion the person’s ethics and ruins the integrity of the jour­nal­is­tic insti­tu­tion as it should work. We have a hard enough time deter­min­ing the dif­fer­ence between blog­gers and jour­nal­ists, no need to add PR ver­sus journalist.

In her post, Becky Armen­dariz praises four col­leagues, while anony­mously ques­tion­ing oth­ers. While the story comes across from her jour­nal­is­tic side, it switches halfway through by refus­ing to name names of the poor prac­ti­tion­ers, most likely of fear of reprisal within the PR world. This is wrong and it’s dis­hon­est, at best.

What do you think? Can PR and jour­nal­ism exist within the same per­son? What needs to hap­pen? What the hell hap­pened to objec­tiv­ity?

Edit: I like this post of Becky’s too. Very inter­est­ing, con­sid­er­ing she seems to block any­one she dis­agrees with. And Diane Wal­lace, you’re not a journalist.

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