There’s a battle being waged in American courtrooms surrounding transparency and, to some people, it may seem inconsistent with key tenets of an important value for public relations professionals..

The Obama Administration has been driving increased enforcement of secrecy laws and policies, while pursuing sanctions against government officials who disclose government secrets and the reporters who use this information to report on issues that concern us all.

Most recently, the focus has been on forcing an author to disclose a source he used in a book about the Central Intelligence Agency. James Risen, who is a reporter for The New York Times, documented the clandestine nature of the federal government in “State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration.”

The battle over disclosure of Risen’s sources for his book, being led by the Justice Department for the past several years, has taken a turn in the author’s favor. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that Risen could limit his testimony in the trial of a CIA official charged with providing classified information for the book.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that this ruling has not garnered attention beyond journalism and policy wonks inside the Beltway. After all, what Judge Brinkema did, in essence, was extend protections offered to journalists and their sources by roughly 80 percent of the states and the District of Columbia to the federal level. Interestingly enough, protections for journalists and their sources do not exist in matters involving the federal government.

Continue reading " Protecting Media Sources in the Digital Age "

Though it will take years to heal for the families directly impacted by the events in Tucson, it will forever become a part of our nation’s legacy of tragedies. We all share the sorrow, but at the same time try to place the blame in order to justify what happened and attempt to figure out how to stop it from happening again.

Last week, our country heard a compassionate plea from our President to take action — not to condemn but to comfort; not to succumb to the negative forces of anger, but to assuage.

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do,” President Obama said, “it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Continue reading " Reflecting on Public Relations’ Role During Tragedy "

It seems that almost anything is an acceptable practice on the Internet. Freedom of speech. What used to be illegal, immoral or unethical is now seemingly acceptable. Even Stephen Ambrose might feel at home. Right?

Wrong! While the First Amendment may allow for the unabashed type of conduct that exists in some Internet circles (e.g. hurtful, anonymous comments), the practice of falsely representing another person’s ideas as your own — plagiarism — is still unethical, and in some cases, illegal.

Continue reading " Thwarting the Rise of Plagiarism "