Spin Alert

books discussed in this review:

PUBLIC RELATIONS DEMOCRACY: POLITICS,PUBLIC RELATIONS, AND THE MASS MEDIA IN BRITAIN
by aeron davis
manchester: manchester university press, 2002

RETHINKING PUBLIC RELATIONS:
THE SPIN AND THE SUBSTANCE
by kevin moloney
london: routledge, 2000

THE DEATH OF SPIN
by george pitcher west sussex u.k.: john wiley & sons ltd., 2003

THE FALL OF ADVERTISING AND THE RISE OF PR
by al and laura reis
new york: harper business, 2002

IT IS NOT every day that some of the leading lights in Canadian advertising and public relations take a couple of hours off in the middle of the day to talk about a book. But so intense was the interest in The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR that the Toronto chapter of the American Marketing Association scheduled two separate sessions last year just to discuss it – and almost universally condemn it. Doug Checkeris, Managing Partner of The Media Company, a Toronto ad agency, called the book’s analysis “simplistic.” Jay Bertram, president of tbwaToronto, flatly declared, “Don’t buy this book.” Meanwhile, the head of one of the biggest ad agencies in the U.S. has dismissed the book as “a lot of bunk.” The president of the American Association of Advertising Agencies has declared its claims “sensational, bordering on ludicrous.” Another advertising executive summed up the prevailing industry wisdom about the author by simply stating, “He’s an idiot.”