I wrote last week about Chrysler realigning its communications function to report to Human Resources. I considered the move a bad one. I’m not alone.

Reporting in Sunday’s Detroit Free Press, columnist Mark Phelan slammed the move. Excerpts:

Communications must have a seat at the grownups’ table, with direct access to Chrysler’s bosses as the company develops and executes its turnaround strategy. Somebody in communications must be able to walk into the CEO’s office and say “There’s a crisis. Here’s what we have to do,” and the boss must trust that person enough to listen.

Done right, communications shapes corporate strategy, influences whether a company has a good or bad reputation and serves as a reality-check for managers who can easily lose touch with how the outside world perceives them.

A really good communications executive is less a spokesperson than a consigliere, the trusted counselor the boss listens to in a crisis.

While expressing dismay over Chrysler’s move, he applauded GM for its “masterful handling of the Chevrolet Volt concept car,” among other things, then told this story:

John Mueller, a retired GM communications executive, worked closely with chairman Rick Wagoner when Wagoner ran GM’s North American operations. One day, he suggested Wagoner do an interview with a journalist from a leading newspaper. Wagoner said that his schedule was full.

Mueller picked up the phone and called Wagoner’s assistant. “Tell him I’ll be right up,” he said. As Mueller stepped into Wagoner’s office, the future leader of the world’s largest automaker smiled.

“If you think it’s important, I’ll do it,” he said. “Don’t you ever quit challenging me when you believe you’re right.”

That, Phelan wrote, is the approach Chrysler should take, rather than relegating communications to a corner of Human Resources.

As my friend Pete Shinbach noted in the email that alerted me to the Free Press story, “How many times have you read a journalist writing about the value of PR other than as a purely media relations function?” Too true: It’s refreshing, amidst all the bickering between PR and journalists, to see a reporter who appreciates the value of effective communications.