Is fighting with the PR industry good PR?

Last week, a New York Times blogger—and restaurant owner—picked a fight with the PR industry. And now he’s back for more.

He says in a recent post on his New York Times blog that PR people drive him crazy. “All of them,” he writes.

Buschel is a small-business blogger for the Times‘, penning his posts about his Hamptons seafood restaurant, Southfork Kitchen. His Feb. 22 post, in which he voices his distaste for the profession we know and love, is titled “The Problem With Public Relations.”

It’s an interesting (not to mention comment-generating) case study in the trials that small businesses face when starting their venture.

In this passage, which comes just after he fires his first PR agency, Buschel eloquently captures the conundrum that many clients face:

“We knew we needed a six-footed monster: a PR agency with one foot on the beach and one in the city, one foot in old media and one more in digital media, another foot in reality and one on the moon.”

Naturally, the blog sparked a flurry of discussion in the comments section, much of which is generated by PR professionals. Some take the clients’ side. Some take the agency’s side. Some remind us why editors hate comments on Web articles.

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