There’s more ink (but little new insight) into Editorial Intelligence in today’s Media Guardian. But Cristina Odone, who sparked this off, has this naive addition to the debate (scroll to ‘The moral of the story’).
Journalists are in the business of exposing the truth, PRs are in the business of twisting it… So no, there is no moral equivalence between journalism and PR.
How superior she must feel – but wait a moment, don’t journalists get paid too? And why does this honourable profession need a Press Complaints Commission (PCC) to investigate its transgressions? I’m not aware of a Public Relations Complaints Commission (PRCC) – though I think it would be worth considering. Only yesterday Peter Preston described Odone’s ‘occasionally febrile way with facts’. Perhaps her judgement is in question too.
UPDATE: Philip Young has written a good, measured post on this matter (he has a foot planted on both sides of this particular divide – which is different from ‘sitting on fence’).
PR Studies 
Always read before you write: my thoughts are very similar to Stuart Bruce’s (http://www.stuartbruce.biz/2006/04/christina_odone.html). He got there first, but I didn’t check for other comments until I’d posted mine. No plagiarism, honest!
There is some satisfaction in knowing there are many other domains of PR practice outwith the Julia Hobsbawm model.
Remind me…. what are the other models for journalists?
Perhaps journalism is just ‘bog standard’.
I worked with one who switched to PR. A really nice guy. Wrote well. Wrote fast. Proffered an Imperial. Knew his beat. Great stories of scoops. Liked to write the in-house news letter. Just a journo really. A writing asset. Perfect words to length.
And everyone (else) was bent – in no more than 100 words.