The other day I heard the editor of the PR industry's most widely circulated trade journal describe the Fleishman-Hillard (F-H) case in L.A. as the Dowie-Stodder trial, as opposed to how the city's newspapers have chosen to cover the trial as an indictment of the billing practices of one of the world's largest PR firms.

Technically, the editor was correct -- F-H wasn't on trial. But only because it settled with the city for millions of dollars before indictments were handed down. The parties on trial, and convicted last week, happened to be the two most senior (and now former) executives in the agency's L.A. office. F-H chose to deflect blame upon the pair, claiming it knew nothing of their decision to over bill the firm's client -- the city's water department -- among several other clients that later learned they had also been over billed.

The fact is it's an old story and even older corporate defense tactic. Rather than accept responsibility for lax management oversight of one's employees and acknowledge the company had benefited from the ethical lapses in behavior -- as F-H did in this case through unearned client billings it was paid for prior to getting caught -- it blames the rogue employees. Whether its Enron, Arthur Andersen or Tyco, the defense is always the same: we knew nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing. If that is in fact true than these executives and their board of directors have no business running these large companies because they are clearly incapable of properly governing and managing their organizations.

Which brings me back to how the trade editor described the case over lunch and then later implied that F-H was a 'victim' and that something like this could happen to any of us who run large firms in the industry. Maybe, but not likely, because most of us don't encourage our employees to do whatever it takes to meet artificial financial goals in order to satisfy Wall Street's expectations for increased quarter over quarter earnings. From my perspective F-H was anything but a victim -- the victims are the rest of us in the PR industry who operate ethically and also received a black eye due to that firm's inappropriate behavior and lack of proper management controls.