What's a PR bailout? It's a necessary, fundamental, and substantive change in an individual, organization, or institution that has lost its way, which requires a program to communicate the change and thereby redeem the entity's reputation. Here, in no particular order, are my picks for the top six of 2009:

Financial services industry: The current economic crisis was the result of poor lending practices, securitization of risky loans, collapse of the housing market, ineffectual oversight, greed, and bad judgment. It seems ...