Full confession: I am a disciple of Flackism.
Does that make me renegade - a traitor to the noble profession of PR? No, it makes me a realist. I do not feel at all slighted when a columnist friend, or even an adversarial hack, calls me a "flack."
I know that no busy reporter is going to use "PR practitioner" to describe me when a handy shorthand term like "flack" will do. Do you?
If you absolutely cannot abide the word, ...