Should our tax dollars go toward professional
development for speechwriters?

In his March 14 blog entry, Edelman Public Relations' chief Dick Edelman reacted strongly to a Sunday New York Times piece on how the Bush administration has ushered in "a new age of prepackaged news."

E.g. Armstrong Williams and Ketchum Public Relations, et al.

Edelman expressed his confidence that, "Though Sunday's article did not focus on the PR agency world … more negative coverage will be coming. Why am I so sure of this? In part, because we have allowed our profession to be increasing defined as complicit in a cover-up, as willing shills who let money overwhelm our judgment and moral compass. We are accused of foisting government propaganda on the American people, in direct violation of the law."

He called for PR agencies to disclose: how much the contracts are worth and what the agencies do for that money: "It is possible that this level of transparency will make it less attractive to the US. Government to hire PR agencies. So be it. We cannot allow the impression that we are an outsourcing mechanism that allows freedom from oversight."

Good for Dick Edelman. He's absolutely right.

But this latest ethics crisis notwithstanding and the use of PR agencies aside, I'm often troubled to see government agencies using my tax dollars to sell government programs and ideas … to me. Or worse, to threaten me if I don't comply. (The finger-wagging seatbelt-law ad "Click It or Ticket" brings hot blood through the arteries in my neck.)

Of course, I know that not all government communication is a sales job … that government and political communication must happen … and that it's worth paying a little extra to be sure it happens well.

I'd better feel that way. After all, I edit a newsletter and run a conference that take in government money to make speechwriters at levels of government from the White House to the local school districts better at communicating the ideas of their government clients … to me.

This being my station in life, it is my responsibility and the responsibility of my government-speechwriter customers to make sure we are doing quality work with honest intentions and for a fair price.

And no public disclosure policy will ever measure our integrity in this area.

Only our conscience will.