It is not often that industries take collective leave of their senses. And there are few things more unnerving for a commentator than all concerned doing very odd things. You get to the point where you believe that 20,000 lemmings can't be wrong.
I flicked on CNN in the middle of the night last week and saw the US mid-term election map turn blue. At first I thought I must be having a nightmare and that Bush had pulled off a miraculous recovery. Then I remembered that in the US the Republicans are the reds and the Democrats Tory blue.
Last week, two of the UK's biggest-selling newspapers published four-page pullouts encouraging readers to become 'citizen journalists'.
To see the worst and best of PR we only have to look at the story of the collapse of Christmas hamper firm Farepak, which, fortunately, continues to run and run.
It is great that agencies are recruiting record numbers of graduates ('The grads are back,' 3 Nov), as investing at this level is critical to ensuring a vibrantfuture for our industry.
I think I understand what Bill Baker is trying to say when he has a go at our recent PRWeek ad (Letters, 3 Nov), but I think he has got the wrong end of the stick.
So Cambridge agency WAR has decided to pull out of the CIPR PRide Awards as it feels 'it's of no interest to us to win against agencies that are just starting out, and it would reflect no great achievement on our part to do so' ('Shortlisted WAR snubs PRide Awards,' 3 Nov).
Trust makes the news-handling business work.
When the Financial Services Authority published a paper on private equity (PE) on Monday it stressed that it was setting the scene for dialogue with the industry, not putting out a blueprint for legislation or rule changes.
Now the Westminster lobby hacks appear to have finally accepted that Gordon Brown is a shoo-in to be next prime minister, Hilary Benn has sensibly bolstered his comms armoury.
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