The PR industry was once again the subject of mainstream media analysis this past Sunday when The New York Times published a 5,100-word article titled “In Case of Emergency: What Not to Do.” The subtitle was "PR Missteps Fueled Fiascos at BP, Toyota and Goldman".

Certainly this is not the first time The Times has tried to tackle the intricacies of the PR industry. In 2005, it published an “expose” about the "devious" VNR, a tool that of course had been ...