A Conversation with Rick French

Well, if you happen to have read the funny papers Friday, Rick French, president and CEO of French/West/Vaughan resigned from the Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS) of Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) after having served one year of a three-year term.

Hmmmmmmmm.

According to Jack O’Dwyer, French agreed that PRSA "has some issues, policies and stances it needs to address.” Rick said, “I personally wish the BEPS board had more authority to effect changes within the organization." Okay. Good. However, O’Dwyer added that French declined to discuss any specific issues.

Ahhhhhhhh... yes... the PR Dodge (dodge (dòj): 1. To avoid by moving or shifting quickly aside; 2. To evade by cunning, trickery, or deceit: kept dodging the reporter's questions).

Well, of course, to us here at Strumpette... that’s red meat!! We decided to ask French directly to clarify. After a little soft-shoe dancing on his part, it deteriorated into French threatening to sue us. Note: We’ve subsequently learned that Rick is an expert in crisis communications. I believe this is the recommended tactic to use when you're between a rock and a hard place holding bupkis.

Anyway, the following are excerpts of our conversation:

AMANDA: We'd like you to tell our readers what PR ethics would mean in a perfect world. If you were given the power to make systemic change, what would you do?

FRENCH: Anything I might write would imply these were changes BEPS or myself weren't able to push through PRSA, and therefore it could be taken that my resignation was some kind of protest, and that simply isn't the case. So given how it might be misinterpreted by some, I'd prefer to pass. After BEPS is able to make its recommendations to the PRSA National Assembly, I might be willing to comment further and provide additional insights.

[Note: rather than answer the question, French defers to PRSA politics, i.e. he might answer after BEPS makes its recommendations.]

AMANDA: But I think with the right intro, you could overcome the possible misperception directly. THE POINT: BEPS seems, and will always be, variously encumbered by political compromise. It would be nice to have someone such as you articulate the goal. Rick, what would it be like in a perfect world? That's all. I've got 33K readers who would like an honest perspective.

FRENCH: I've never said BEPS is politically compromised. What I said is I wish it had a broader mandate.

AMANDA: I never said you said that BEPS is politically compromised. I said it. That also happens to be the general consensus. You know that. As to your wish for a broader mandate... we share it. THAT'S what needs articulation. And YOU are uniquely qualified to do that. That's exactly what our 33K plus readers expect.

[No response from French here.]

AMANDA: The story we've decided to go with then is PR's inability to "shame." We think your reluctance here exemplifies that. Bottom line: PR has no legal way to limit or punish its own; also, regrettably there's a HUGE reluctance on the part of PR's ethical "leaders" to stand the fuck up and shame their colleagues that are out of bounds. The story will be about the sin of omission.

FRENCH: If you use my resignation to try and make your point in any way, or think you can bully me into writing something for you... then I will sue you to kingdom come. I told you I would be willing to write a piece for you after some time passed but that offer is off the table.

AMANDA: Again, as is, your response makes our point rather dramatically. Just so we are not blamed for not giving you a good faith opportunity, I'll leave the window open 'til Monday close of business.

CONCLUSION

Again, for the record, in subsequent emails, Rick went from threatening a lawsuit to accusing us of “blackmail and extortion.” “Serious charges,” he said. “Enjoy the Cook County showers,” he said.

Bottom line: Rick opened the door in O’Dwyers. Again, according to French, PRSA "has some issues, policies and stances it needs to address.” Rick said, “I personally wish the BEPS board had more authority to effect changes within the organization."

And look what he goes through here to avoid answering any specific issues. Any wonder why things are as fucked up as they are in the PR industry.

Thanks Rick. You'll be missed.

To all you PR 2.0 blog evangelists... is this where you are pushing your clients?

The heat in the ongoing feud between PR industry curmudgeon Jack O'Dwyer and the Public Relations Society of America was turned up a notch today as the publisher of PR's leading trade publication now not only claims he's been robbed but is openly accusing PRSA of the theft.

The latest chapter in the saga stems from an internal audit of the traffic of odwyerpr.com. O'Dywer's recently learned that Gerry Corbett, a national board member of PRSA, had accumulated grossly excessive usage numbers for the fee-based odwyerpr.com site. According to electronic records, Corbett's usage was many times greater than that of the average single subscriber. Corbett's unique password had 10,510 "hits" in the first 18 days of July, a figure surpassed only by the 11,581 hits registered for the free sample codes.

O'Dwyer said: "The numbers don't lie. Our electronic monitoring has Corbett's access among the most used codes to the site. It's not possible that's coming from one person. Thus far this month, he's had the second highest number of "hits" of any group or individual subscriber."

O'Dwyer blames PRSA. "This wouldn't be the first time," he said. O'Dwyer recounts that in 2005, PRSA was busted for having multiple users on one subscription code. At the time they were using O'Dwyer's fee only service for one $295 subscription as much as companies that were paying up to $5,000 a year for group access.

Is it theft? Well, in addition to the fact that all contents of odwyerpr.com are copyrighted; all subscribers to the O'Dwyer website electronically agree that they are "responsible for the security of their username and password" and are "solely liable for any use or unauthorized use under such username and password."

Corbett, who also heads the Branding and Corporate Communications Group at Hitachi America, vehemently denies the accusation. He said today he had "no idea" how his personal access codes came to be used so widely. "I never gave them to anyone," he said.