We are proud to announce that the Canadian Public Relations Society has chosen my firm, James Hoggan & Associates and the DeSmogBlog to receive an award for demonstrating “the highest ethical and professional standards
while performing outstanding work.”

Given the risks involved in launching the DeSmogBlog, this is incredibly gratifying. This project is fundamentally a long and loud criticism of bad public relations. We have tried, for the last two years, to call attention to the unsavory public relations intervention in the global warming debate. And DeSmogBlog readers will know that we have pulled no punches in naming names and identifying PR tactics that are questionable in and of themselves or are being used in a questionable way.

A few people in the public relations business took this criticism personally. But we have been overwhelmed – and delighted – to find that most of our PR colleagues were as angry and frustrated as we are about the misuse of public relations skills to defend indefensible positions.

In the CPRS news release, Ange Frymire, Chair of the British Columbia CPRS Awards Committee, said the
awards – the first to be bestowed in B.C. – were established to make professionals and the general public aware of the high-quality work being produced by BC‘s public relations practitioners. “These awards help to promote public understanding of the kind of work that our public relations sector is doing to serve the public interest,” Frymire said.

We are honoured to have been recognized and reassured by the courageous and principled reaction that our professional colleagues have shown in presenting this award. It does, indeed, speak to a level of ethical evidence of which the CPRS should be proud.

So, my thanks to the committee, and thanks to the DeSmogBlog team (especially Richard Littlemore and Kevin Grandia) and to Hoggan account executive Erin Gawne who prepared our submission. Thanks especially to my friend and DeSmogBlog co-founder and patron, John Lefebvre, without whose support the blog and all of our related work would never have been possible.