Tabloid media, nowadays a term which conveniently describes an approach to news rather than just a newspaper format, has much to answer for in terms of pain, suffering and distortion.

Much of its deleterious impact is on politics and the most vulnerable or most gullible sections of society.  Even more seriously, for example, the enthusiasm with which news media absorbed and amplified the lies and distortions in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq may not have been responsible for the thousands of deaths which occurred but it helped create the climate which made it possible. read more

New PRIA President, Mike Watson, has passed on to the blog a number of initiatives the PRIA is taking on internships – plus some research on what Registered Consultancy Group members think about interns.

First, the good news. The PRIA conducted a survey of 30 consultancies across Australia in September  2012. Just over half of respondents were from NSW, with Queensland and Victoria both contributing 15% each. Multiple consultancies from WA, SA and Victoria also participated.  40% of consultancies participating were small (1-5 staff), 27% mid-size and 33% large or multinationals. It found that: “80% of consultancies did not host tertiary work experience students to just observe in the office. The small number who did host work experience students offered only short time periods, generally only one or two weeks.”. read more

Internships exploitation in PR is obviously not only a widespread problem but one which provokes some strong feelings.

The blog was a bit taken aback when students at RMIT started to unload on the system and was rather more taken aback when horror stories started to roll in. As readers will have noticed the blog does not provide a comments section partly because of lack of time to moderate it and partly because, while writing for the online newsletter crikey , the blog became aware of the combination of vitriol and insanity among many of those who felt compelled to post reactions. But working in an industry full of resourceful people comments came from many who used old-fashioned email to give their views. read more

Surveys of PR employer attitudes consistently show that a majority of them are unhappy with the skills and standards of PR course students. Yet, ironically they are simultaneously taking PR undergraduates on as interns in record numbers.

This may be a coincidence, a correlation or something else but it seems significant that the uptick in seeking PR interns started in the significant year of 2008 and has continued through the slow process of recovery from the great financial crisis. read more

There is nothing quite like scare campaigns – from the mild suggestion of unintended consequences to claims that we’ll all be ‘rooned’.

Politicians have used them for years ranging from the Yellow Peril to the Red Menace and from drugs to s.x rock and roll. More recently it has been the demonising of the few refugees, in comparison for instance to those trying to cross the Mediterranean, coming to Australia by boat. The Red Menace, on the other hand, was probably dead by the time Malcolm Fraser warned that if a Labor Government was elected people should hide their money under their beds and Bob Hawke replied that it was no good putting any money under the beds because that’s where the Reds were! read more

Australian Attorney General George Brandis thinks it is medieval, politically correct and a rejection of freedom of speech for scientists and others not to engage with climate denialists.

Presumably he also thinks it’s medieval for people not to engage with creationists who believe the earth was created 10,000 years ago and Adam and Eve shared the world with dinosaurs; and, perhaps medieval not to engage with people who think the Sun revolves around the earth. Now the blog doesn’t know how good a lawyer Brandis is but he’s obviously an awful Attorney General and worse historian. After all the point of medieval life – and the church which dominated it – was not to engage with contrary beliefs but to seek to obliterate them with torture, censorship and auto da fes. read more

The key characteristic of the Enlightenment was the pursuit, production and promulgation of knowledge. Its impetus was the need to combat ignorance, superstition and fear. Unfortunately today the need is still as great as we face the systematic pursuit, production and promulgation of ignorance.

In the past week the blog has come across two pieces on how the production of ignorance is flourishing. The first from the George Mason University Centre for Climate Change Communication was an article published in the American Geophysical Union open-access journal. The Centre, in announcing the paper’s publication, said: “The climate science community needs to do more to communicate the scientific consensus because: (a) most Americans don’t know there is a scientific consensus on this point; (b) this lack of awareness undermines people’s engagement in the issue; and (c) research by our team – and others – has shown that simple messages that communicate this basic scientific conclusion are highly effective, especially with political conservatives.” read more

While the recent UN International Court of Justice finding against Japanese whaling is a great victory it does raise an interesting question. Was Japanese whaling a bloody, but clever diversion, from a much bigger problem?

No, the blog has not become addicted to conspiracy theories but a friend recently outlined a slightly alternative view of the role of whaling in Japanese society and economy which he had discovered while living and working in Japan. Whale meat is not some long honoured traditional Japanese food but rather an emergency measure introduced by the post-war US administration of the country. Unlike the rights of the native peoples of the Arctic region there is no long-standing cultural rationale. The recognition of such a rationale is why the Inuit and Greenlanders, for instance, still take some whales and share them among the community. Having tasted a small portion of one in Greenland, out of courtesy to a village host, the blog thinks it’s a tradition which seems to be of little culinary appeal whatever the cultural justification. read more

The list of PR lists has grown yet again with the Salt & Shein Power 50 – a list of Australia’s most influential corporate affairs executives

The list was prepared by an external consultancy and nominees were selected on the basis of their track record as senior practitioners; the regard they are held in by their senior management and peers; influence within their organisations and the corporate affairs industry as a whole; and, their track records as thought leaders. read more

It is often remarked that the best books about politics are those written by political  losers – people who have been less than successful in their political careers or people who failed to get to the top and were condemned to watch from the sidelines.

The first evidence cited of the validity of this position is always, of course, Machiavelli’s The Prince. Imprisoned, tortured and banished he ended up writing a tract still quoted almost 500 years later. Indeed, the list of illuminating texts by the unsuccessful is long – Cicero, Burke, Madison, Mill, de Tocqueville and Max Weber for a start. read more