Lloyd sets up his opinion piece with a quick interpretation of the trend(s). Two actually: First, he concludes that it used to be that lying was one sided. Now both PR and jounos have agendas. Second, with the rise of political correctness, the public is most unkind to frank discourse. As such, PR today is the necessary evil. "Hypocrisy becomes the price executive authority pays to political correctness; the payment is made by public relations."

He then adroitly grounds his argument in an ideal:

"The way in which most of the Anglo-Saxon states get at the truth under the law is by advocacy of particular and often opposing cases. Two views are put, with passion and eloquence, by barristers. Public relations people are secular barristers. Journalists are the secular juries. They are at least as imperfect in that function as PRs are in the advocacy one, but they are what we have. A lot depends on two things: first, on the media's willingness to consider the cases made; and second, their skepticism about the cases made, and their ability to test them against counter claims, and to moderate them with other information."

That's so very romantic. The model he depicts is an extension of the PR pat phrase "the court of public opinion." However, the image is terribly flawed. PR is frankly lawless. A better analogy would be the snake-oil hawker on the midway. Journs are the cops that make sure the hawker doesn't go as far as to pick the pockets of retards, children, old ladies and such.

Anyway, Lloyd's article then takes a regrettable turn. He tries to justify the current situation.

"Public relations and journalism do not inhabit separate worlds; in particular, the relationship between them is not that of sleazy liars seeking to seduce seekers after truth. Truth does not reside on one side only. Standards are not the monopoly of one and unknown to the other. Journalism cannot understand itself unless it understands what public relations has done to it; how murky and grubby the relationship can become, with the connivance of both, and how the relationship might work to the benefit of citizens who should be told something like the truth."

He uses the above to advocate some cockamamie notion (Julia Hobsbawm's Editorial Intelligence) that since things are generally so fucked up that PR and media should actually deepen their relationship and more formally foster cooperation.

COLLECTIVE GASP! It was like watching a world-class gymnast completely blow the landing and his Achilles heel. I imagine Lloyd being consoled by his coach. A life of training nullified in a moment. The agony of defeat. His career, over. He may never walk again.

Here, let me clarify and set the record straight:

The fifth estate has lost a lot of its once total power. That's fact. So much so that Richard Edelman, CEO of the world's largest independent PR firm (that bears his name), boldly proclaimed a month ago that the media "wasn't God anymore." Because of the realities of the internet, PR can now circumvent its filters.

As much as PR might cheer that as a triumph, for those who cherish an ordered democracy it's a sure sign of the apocalypse. In "Would you like your news spun or opinionated?" (The Telegraph, 22/11/05), Roy Greenslade writes, "This (trend) is an overt admission that the 21st-century press columnist has greater power than the reporter. Commentators have now assumed greater importance than reporters, standing on its head C P Scott's famous dictum about comment being free while facts are sacred. In modern terms, it would appear that comment is indispensable while facts are incidental."

Image a world without fact. Imagine relying on Jeremy Pepper, Scott Baradell, Phil Gomes, Gregory Kohs, Mike Krempasky, Michael Driehorst, or Robert French, to help make up one's mind whether to have the operation or not. Silly. Is it? Take the world they advocate and extend it out some. That's scary.

Okay, let's dispense with the PR hooey and set the record straight. If there is anything beneficial that can be gleaned from the "court" analogy, it's the necessity of the adversarial nature of the legal system. It is an essential dynamic and anything less than that in all likelihood is tantamount to attorney malpractice. To loosen journalistic standards to accommodate the modern media condition is more than surrender. It is an assault on the public interest.

Truth is, I never shacked up with an anchor. Sure, I fooled around with Mark, a lot! But bottom line, there is no self-respecting newsman or woman that would even consider that public pairing. It absolutely would be "sleeping with the enemy."