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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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An open invitation to Dominic Jones

In the interest of accuracy, I have removed an item I posted last night that cited several passages from Reg FD. I’m sure it can be found in a cache, but if it’s inaccurate, I don’t want it here suggesting otherwise. I posted the item in an attempt to clarify rules about disclosure. I carefully read the regulation and did my best to cite the relevant passages. However, I am by no means an investor relations expert—never claimed I was—and IR expert Dominic Jones informed me in comments that I had it wrong. Specifically, he said:

What the…!? Please stop writing about this, you???re making a fool of yourself.

Well, okay. Not like that’s never happened before. (Dominic’s comments were removed with the post. If anybody thinks it’s important to have the full text of his criticism and elaboration, let me know and I’ll post them.)

But I would like to see a single item somewhere that informs people in the public relations profession—and people with an interest in the practice of public relations, whether they support PR or think it’s the lowest profession on earth—with a simple-to-read explanation of what the SEC does require. Not what should be required, but what is currently required under the law.

I can think of nobody better suited to write this than Dominic, so this is an open invitation to Dominic to produce a few graphs that summarizes it. I’ll publish it here under his by-line.

01/24/07 | 17 Comments | An open invitation to Dominic Jones

Comments

  • 1.Shel

    I still had the original post in Google Reader when I came to check your feed. I honestly didn't see that much wrong with 'getting it wrong', if you see what I mean. Maybe sticking 'strike' tags around the whole post with a message saying that you take back everything you say would have been a less drastic step than removing the post!

    But then I don't know how I would react if Dominic Jones was calling me a fool!

    Dave Briggs | January 2007 | UK

  • 2.Hi, Dave.

    I worried about the content being discoverable in other places -- like Google -- where misinformation might be absorbed without reference to strike-outs. But I appreciate what you're saying. I really struggled with this.

    Shel Holtz | January 2007 | Concord, CA

  • 3.It sure is a tough one, but you've not gone down in my eyes at all. Keep up the good work - I'm downloading FIR 209 as I type!

    Dave Briggs | January 2007 | UK

  • 4.Thanks for the invitation, but I think you should put the post back and let people make up their own minds.

    For what it's worth, your post did a fair job of analyzing what Regulation FD actually says.

    So what if I think you made a fool of yourself by completely missing the debate that has followed between the years 2001 and 2007. Or that you were wrong in an earlier post to say press releases aren't required to meet the requirements.

    Put it back and let your readers make up their own minds. I figure they're smart enough to work it out.

    Dominic Jones | January 2007 | Toronto

  • 5.Still waiting... In the interests of transparency, please put the deleted post back.

    Your claim that it was removed in the interests of accuracy is nonsense.

    Put the post back, Shel. Let everyone see what you don't want them to see.

    Dominic Jones | January 2007

  • 6.Okay, Dominic--

    Shel has re-posted the post.

    I am one reader who is not smart enough to "work it out"; now that you have snorted and grunted for most of a week out here, please catch us dummies up on the six-year debate we've missed.

    David

    David Murray | January 2007 | Chicago

  • 7.I think Dominic's comments here are unnecessarily aggressive, to be honest.

    Dave Briggs | January 2007 | UK

  • 8.David, the debate basically suggests that there has been enough advancement in the use of the Net -- both from the content provision side and the user side -- for the SEC to accept alternative distribution technologies to satisfy the broad distribution requirement. In a comment to the post I removed, Dominic wrote:

    "Former SEC Commissioner Laura Unger in 2001 said that news releases should no longer be required under FD. She wrote:

    "'The Commission should make clear that options such as adequately noticed website postings, fully accessible webcasts and electronic mail alerts would satisfy Regulation FD.'

    "I blogged at length about this issue here

    "So five years ago, before RSS was on the radar of the SEC, one of the commissioners and several people in the IR profession, were saying press releases shouldn't be required."

    I don't disagree with that view. You know me well enough, David, to know that I'm a staunch advocate of online communication and adoption of its various advancements. However, the regulation has not been updated to accommodate this viewpoint, and until it is, companies need to meet the existing requirements of the regulation.

    Shel Holtz | January 2007

  • 9.Well, that makes sense to me, Shel. Does it make sense to you, Dominic? Can we shake hands on this Friday and go into the weekend in peace?

    David Murray | January 2007 | Chicago

  • 10.I do find this entire thread most odd.

    Shel, I presumed my comments on the original post were lost and so I just decided to let the whole thing slide, but here it seems you still have them.

    So why not simply reinstate the original post, including my comments and any others, as they were? Why did you have to rework your post before reposting it?

    Post, delete, post again (in a different form...

    Is this the kind of transparency you advocate?

    Dominic Jones | January 2007 | Toronto

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