Colin says PR is having an identity crisis. Well we certainly should have an identity crisis, but I like to think of us more as being chameleons.
With each and every day, we take on the identity of other professions. One day we can be setting up a Face…

Much of what you appear to deride - tepid fact sheets, newsletters, etc - is actually a part of what we do. Niotice, though, that I said a part, as in a piece or one aspect.

Public relations has many aspects or areas of practice that are defined bot by the client or market but by the internal skill. Writiing and editting high quality newsletters or other internal comms verhicles is an important aspect of what we do.

So too is analysing research.

So too is the day-to-day media relations role which is itself just as important as the PR manager higher up the organizational chart who figures out how to organize all the various technical specialties of PR into a properly structured campaign.

The problme we are discussing here - I think - is really the tendency for us as practitioners to ignore the crap work being done by hacks who call themselves practitioners and professionals but who really aren’t.

Our code of ethics rightly enjoins us not to criticise our fellows. Well, ladies and gentleman, the journalist hired for a mid level or senior job because he or she is related to someone important or hired because the company hiring had no clue what they wanted is not really a colleague. They are moonlighters. They are hacks. They are the people who, in another skilled trade, a guy like Mike Holmes would lament as he moves in to clean up their mess.

And at the end of that is really another aspect of the problem: client education. If we keep educating clients about what we do and, as you say keep practicing with high skills and competence, the moonlighters will be seen for what they are.

It might send some into the horrors but maybe as PR pros we ought to consider a campaign of consumer education, much as professional building contractors have done, to make clients aware of the horrors of hiring hacks.

I agree. I just think the continual worrying about how we can “fix our profession’s image” will never overcome the poor impression left by some anateurs - and some evil-doers.