Sorry, I've been a bit lax about blogging recently. But I was away at Labour Party Conference all of last week and most of my observations there were more relevant to my council blog.

However, it will be interesting to see how the government's PR machine changes now that David Hill is in charge. David has a good reputation as a down to earth operator. Hopefully his time in the private sector will also have taught him some useful new tricks.

I'll post some more PR tips next week.

Today's PR Week front page story is about Cadbury Schweppes appointing Fleishman-Hillard to restore its battered reputation. And not a moment too soon. This is the chocolate company that comparted to its competitor Nestle was almost a candidate for sainthood. But a corporate reputation is a delicate thing and needs nurturing. A series of recent blunders have knocked its halo.

Its clumsy 'Get Active' Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme was ill thought out from the start and deserved all of the critiscism it received. I ask you did they real think it was a good idea to encourage children to eat chocolate in order to get free sports equipment for schools?

Let's see if Fleishman-Hillard can do the job. I hope so because I still have a soft spot for Cadbury. At least they appear to be trying to do the right thing, unlike their rivals Nestle.

The Thinker (aka Paul Richards) has been having a rant on one of my pet hates. I'm going to join him as a founder member of the Apostrophe Action Front. I'll never tire of complaining about journalists who take a perfectly good news release and then proceed to butcher it with bad grammar. Yet journalists still like to claim the moral high ground and moan about how PR people can't write!

Although I will concede that all too frequently they have a point. I've seen news releases (or worse still the poor suckers call them press releases) issued by top ten PR companies that I wouldn't consider acceptable even if written by a first year PR student. They still call them press releases because half the time they don't contain any news, or they've hidden it half way the third paragraph.

Sorry, grumpy old man bit over. And I'm only 35!

I'm no fan of the Today programme. Once it was genuinely the flagship news programme of the nation. Now it has dissapeared so far up its own behind that it speaks total...

The latest row is about the BBC pulling an interview by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Lambeth Palace aides were repordly furious because John Humphries breached an agreement not to question Rowan Williams about the Iraq war.

The question being asked is was the BBC right to do this (Humphries was furious and threatend to quit). My professional PR opinion is that it depends on the agreement. If Today had agreed with the Lambeth Palace PRs not to mention the war then it is a serious breach of ethics to do so. Therefore the BBC was right to pull the interview.

I've dealt with Today and they are a pain in the butt. Arrogant beyond belief. Other broadcasters (including other BBC news outlets) usually play an honest bat. Not so Today.

When I was representing a personal injury law firm I remember Today tracking down the families of children who had died of CJD. More than 20 families were involved in the court case, most of whom were willing to talk to the press, a few who wouldn't. Every other newspaper and broadcaster respected our wishes and only tried to interview the families we gave them. Not so Today, who harrassed distressed people with late night and early morning phone calls to pressurise them into talking.

Its about four years since I worked on PR for personal injury lawyers but I'm working on a pitch to one at the moment. It's the most exciting brief I've had since setting up my own business. It's impossible not to be moved by the fact that your PR campaign is actually having a real, direct, positive impact on people's live.

I'm intrigued to discover that acerbic Yorkshire Post columnist Bill Carmichael has been blogging on 20six since July and I've never seen it until now. Although on starting to read it I had a strange sense of deja vu. Sure enough, most of the blogs appear to have already been published in the Yorkshire Post.

I'm not sure what to make of this. Bill's not the only columnist to maintain a blog, but I'm not sure how many of the others recycle their newspaper column as opposed to creating fresh copy.

One advantage of a blog is that a good columnist should provoke anger or delight and a blog provides a good feedback mechanism for debate.

I quite like Bill's column, it usually provokes a sigh and a feeling of sympathy that one man can be so mistaken, so often. On the other hand I no longer feel even outraged by his fellow columnist Bernard Dineen who was out of touch ten years ago and would now be best pensioned off in a corner of Yorkshire untouched by any trace of modern Britain.

Thanks to VoxPolitics and Tom Watson MP for pointing me to iCAN!. It's still in beta at the moment but I think has great potential as a campaigning resource for communities.

If (once) it takes off this sort of thing can potentially have a big impact on PR. It gives disgruntled customers or stakeholders another forum to work with. It also has the potential for use in astro-turfing campaigns. This is where a company or special interest group will whip up a 'manufactured' grassroots campaign.