This year's Masters golf tournament became mired in controversy because one of the three commercial and media partners of the legendary golf tournament, IBM, now has a female CEO.

Edelman's latest edition of its Trust Barometer predicted it would take the financial industry a decade to reconstruct its reputation following the crisis of 2008-09.

It was fitting Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide chose Social Media Week to announce the launch of an exciting and potentially groundbreaking venture to house its social media activities.

Ethics and PR is a subject that crops up again and again, especially when crises emerge that hit the headlines in the national press and the industry engages in another period of hand-wringing.

If 2009 was a year of recession and 2010 was one of retrenchment, it's fair to say 2011 was a great year for PR and communications.

Much of the discussion at PRWeek's recent NEXT Conference at The TimesCenter in New York revolved around cementing communications' place at the epicenter of corporations and organizations to ensure it is embedded in top-level strategy and plays a fundamental role in how companies do business.

What are we to make of the Occupy Wall Street protests that broke out in New York City in September and subsequently spread across America and the rest of the world?

Brands are fragile things these days - especially those that have appeared on the scene relatively recently.

If you play devil's advocate and peer into the future, it is possible to paint a scenario where prospects don't look so rosy for PR.

The pace of change in social media channels shows no sign of slowing.