“We love you when we need you, but we hate you when we don’t.” A view expressed to me by a journalist many years ago as we were discussing the relationship between our respective disciplines. It is partially true because some journalists do hold that view. Equally some PR people hold a similar view of journalists.

The relationship between these two very important groups in the media world can be fractious but also fruitful for both sides. Despite the, sometimes perceived, cynical nature of both journalism and PR, their relationship, by and large, is based on trust and honesty.

The news which broke late last week that US executives in the Global PR company Burson-Marsteller sought to smear Google through the media, without revealing their client, subsequently identified as Facebook, is truly shocking.

A spokesman for Facebook said: “No 'smear’ campaign was authorised or intended. Instead, we wanted third parties to verify that people did not approve of the collection and use of information from their accounts on Facebook and other services for inclusion in Google Social Circles.”

Burson-Marsteller said that it was a mistake to have taken on the assignment and agreeing to hide the identity of their client when approaching the media: “This was not at all standard operating procedure and is against our policies, and the assignment on those terms should have been declined. When talking to the media, we need to adhere to strict standards of transparency about clients, and this incident underscores the absolute importance of that principle.”

While the PR industry has largely been critical of Burson-Marsteller’s actions one London PR company told the Telegraph that concealing the identity of a client was a “grey area” of PR and that on occasions it does happen, especially in politics. “It’s not always commonplace to reveal a client’s identity – but that type of conversation doesn’t usually happen in emails – it usually happens on the phone between good contacts.”

Call me naïve but it is not a ‘grey area’. It is pure and simply dishonest. And to seek to persuade an industry blogger to participate in the subterfuge is downright stupid as well as being totally unprofessional. Maybe I have just been lucky. But in over 30 years in the PR world I have never been asked to smear someone by any client. For sure in conflict situations, such as industrial relation disputes or in hostile situations, such as mergers or takeovers, I have argued my client’s position aggressively. But always on the issues and never to undermine the other side’s reputation, tempting as it has been at times.

The issue also highlights once again the power that bloggers and other social media users have. It was a blogger who exposed the exchange of emails with the Burson-Marsteller executives who were attempting to have him write a negative story about Google, with the inducement that they could have his story published in some leading US publication.

This is not the first time that Burson-Marsteller has attracted a lot of bad press in the blogosphere in recent years. There is a dedicated website to watching its activities. It is entitled ‘Burson-Marsteller watch’ and is sub-titled ‘Keeping an eye on Hell’s Public Relations Firm.’

Reading about the controversy compounded the bruising I felt a week ago listening to Kristin Roberts, Reuters Washington News Editor & Deputy Bureau Chief address a conference organised by the global PR network, IPREX in the US capital (Walsh PR is the Republic of Ireland partner in the network). She began her talk on the Media/PR Agency relationship by reading out some press releases and letters sent to her colleagues from PR people. Some were totally irrelevant to the journalists who received them, some were addressed to journalists who no longer worked at the bureau and others were just plain waffle. On the positive side she stressed that she had established many important and useful relationships with PR professionals and valued those relationships.

Ironically one of her tips to PR people was to be honest with journalists about the context of the contact.

The Burson-Marsteller/Facebook debacle and the criticisms of PR people by the Kristin Roberts are at either end of the spectrum of bad practices. On the one hand you have subterfuge and at the other extreme, you have downright incompetence where there has either been no proper research carried out in advance of making contact with a journalist or a complete lack of management of junior executives.

When you have committed your working life to a business that you enjoy and believe has a real value, it is difficult at times to read and listen to people deriding it, sometimes justifiably, in terms that suggest it is inhabited by fools or knaves.

The reality is that the vast majority of PR professionals are neither. They spend their time productively providing the best communication advice they can to their clients or employers and where they interact with the media they try to provide a good story to the most appropriate media in a way that will spark their interest.

That way we can bask in the warmth of journalists love. Thankfully Irish journalists don’t do hate, although occasionally they do bark.