We've lost count, but there's another round between Jack O'Dwyer and the Public Relations Society of America to report.
In a rather terse letter to Richard Newman (CEO of The Newman Group), Bob Frause, chairman of PRSA's Board of Ethics and Professional Standards, asserts that the decision by the PRSA Board of Directors to reply to O'Dwyer with a "no comment" is not an ethics violation based on a review by the BEPS. Newman filed a May 11 complaint alleging that the "no comment" policy breached PRSA's ethics rules.
The letter ironically also chastises Newman. Even though PRSA has released the ethics board's decision to the media, it rebukes Newman for releasing his complaint to the media before a decision was rendered.
When asked why BEPS would commit the same violation of which it accused Newman, Frause responded that once Newman made his complaint public, BEPS thought it was entitled to make its response public as well.
"We thought this would be fair to all the parties involved," says Frause. He added there weren't any clear-cut rules stopping BEPS from releasing its decision once normal policy and procedures were circumvented when Newman went public with his charge.
Our final comment?
Maybe MTV would be willing to end this fight once-and-for-all by scheduling a "Celebrity Death Match" between PRSA President Ray Gaulke and O'Dwyer. The winner would be decided by votes from PR executives with the favored outcome scripted into this bizarre cartoon.
PRSA could then convince Medialink to Webcast the showdown at next year's PRSA conference.