Princeton University Professor Harry G. Frankfurt, whose 2005 best-seller On B.S. examined the differences between lying and B.S., takes on the apparently opposite subject in his new sequel On Truth.

And, truth be told, we’re disappointed with some PR practitioners, since Frankfurt finds publicists ranking right up there with politicians in their “endemic” disregard for the truth. But he finds a similar tendency growing among authors and since he’s obviously an author who’s an exception to that trend, we’d like to point out that there are a fair number of publicists – and maybe even a politician or two – who aren’t afraid of the truth.

“Is our fast and easy way with the facts actually crippling us?” asks the book’s publisher Random House. It’s a fair question to ask those publicists who have been known to stretch the truth at times.

As we pointed out when we wrote about On B.S., “it is crucial for the press to once again regain the public’s respect as arbiters of the truth.” Yet, with staff and budget cuts taking place in so many traditional news media, reporters will increasingly be dependent on the truthfulness (not "truthiness," which is a whole other story) of what they see on the wire services and hear from official spokespersons. When messages being delivered by companies skirt the truth, PR practitioners become nothing more than aiders and abetters in deluding the public.