This week I’m the guest speaker at a graduate PR program in Maryland. It’s a virtual classroom and the grad students pose their questions on a message board. One student asked why public relations has such a bad reputation. I replied that bad PR gets a lot of press while professional, ethical communicators do their jobs without anyone shining a spotlight on them.

Such is the case with a headline I’ve seen in a number of print and online publications, a variation on the one that ran yesterday in The Silicon Valley Business Journal: Wal-Mart launches public relations offensive. Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based mega-retailer, is apparently tired of being branded as a souless, small-business devouring monster. Consequently, the company has taken out full-page ads in a number of California newspapers to dispute the charges.

The ads tout the wages Wal-Mart employees earn, the number of full-time workers it hires, the fact that it provides medical coverage to full- and part-time workers, and the economic benefits of the company’s presence in California.

This may or may not prove a useful tactic as Wal-Mart continues its expansion plans here in the Golden State. But is it public relations? I suppose it depends on your definition. I suspect the ads were conceived and developed by a PR department or agency. Issues advertising is an idea conceived by Mobil Oil’s Herb Schmertz back in the 70’s during the energy crisis. But I still see this as advertising. These are ads, after all, that push a message one-way, top-down. Public relations, as I see it, is more about managing relationships through engagement and two-way communication.

Whether you see it as PR or advertising, though, the fact that headlines across the media tout is as a “PR offensive” helps reinforce the negative perception the public has of our profession.