All the top Public Relations news.

Even major news gathering organizations can make dumb PR mistakes. Note that the Washington Post was outed by a blog.

Wal-Mart is marching on its own in its decision to support employer-paid health care. It is a daring move that has upset peers in retail and in most of industry for that matter. But, the company is so large it can take a contrarian position and make it stick. Why Wal-Mart has decided to break ranks is not entirely clear, but it obviously has good reasons for doing so. Economically, with its huge employee population, the company will be able to negotiate better deals for health insurance than smaller competitors. From a PR perspective, the company's position is forward thinking and guaranteed…

If the airline business weren't as poor as it is now, Boeing would have lost many more orders for its new and troubled airframe program. The company is straining credibility and trust with its customers and investors by a more than two-year delay in building its new 787. It seems that everything has gone wrong from management through insufficient numbers of fasteners and inability of subcontractors to turn out parts on time. The travesty raises a question of how far a company can push its stakeholders before they give up and go elsewhere. Fortunately for Boeing, there aren't many other places…

Here is one reason why it is harder for PR practitioners to place business news stories. There are fewer business journalists and the number will continue to decline. Business news reporting is going back to the future. For those with long memories, there was a time when business news was confined to a page after the sports section and usually consisted of wire service reports and stock tables. The growth in business journalism occurred since the 1980s. The current decline is not healthy, especially since industry will need to pull the US from the recession and the concerns of business need…

Taking two weeks off from the internet, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio is an interesting exercise. The consequent gap in knowledge is not large but the urge to get back into the news stream is compelling. I spent the weekend reading newspapers and magazines to get a feel for what I missed. It doesn't seem like much. The benefit of isolation is that it teaches one how much of life goes on without a constant stream of information to distract one. It also is a reminder that most people live this way. They have the necessary chores of life that take away the time they might spend with news…