I continue to hear colleagues reference the New York Times article "Spinning the Web" that forecasts the demise of public relations. What I don't understand is why everyone takes it so seriously -- given that the NYT is a financial loser and a reporting nightmare.

On the latter point, in less than six months, the Times has had to own up to two serious blunders in reporting -- very quietly, of course.

As recently as July 10th, it acknowledged, only in an editors note, that their photographer had digitally altered photographs to magnify the effects of the recession on a housing project, so "the images did not wholly reflect reality." The note continued, "Had the editors known that the photographs been digitally manipulated, then they wouldn't have published the picture essay." That's like saying if we knew our client was lying we wouldn't have issued the press release.

And that same Magazine in March published an article about Iraq, featuring a woman who supposedly was raped and injured by a roadside bomb there. One problem. She was never in Iraq. The Times learned she lied to reporters 10 days before publication but ran the false story anyway and didn't inform readers until a week later, again as an editors note.

Given these recent examples of what is sloppy-bordering-on-unethical reporting and keeping in mind the 2003 Jayson Blair fraud, how can we possibly let ourselves lose perspective on our value versus that of the New York Times. In the changing world of social media that is featured in "Spinning the Web," it seems incredibly ironic that a newspaper on the verge of bankruptcy is taking to task an industry on the verge of leadership. In fact, you could say that the paper is the loser and we are the winner.