James L. Horton

James L. Horton is a Principal of Robert Marston & Associates, a New York-based PR firm and is their manager of "online services." He also runs the Online Public Relations website.

A biographical note states that Horton "has more than 25 years of experience in achieving results for clients in investor relations, corporate communications, financial and service business positioning and marketing. He has worked extensively on helping clients preserve their reputations during both national and international crises."

"Among Horton's clients have been the laptop PC unit of Toshiba, Porsche Cars North America, the executive recruiting firm Spencer Stuart, Coopers & Lybrand, KPMG Peat Marwick, Control Data, John Hancock Financial Services, Veridian, CACI, Mitchell Energy and Herman Miller, the office furniture manufacturer," his biographical note states.

Fear of Leaks
In a September 2007 post on his blog, Horton expressed concern about the advent of Wikileaks, a new website that provides a means for people to share information about unethical behavior by governments and corporations. Wikileaks says it "is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and participatory analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations." On his blog, Horton says this "statement of purpose is chilling. ... The site has been successful already in revealing the misbehavior of an African leader. If it endures, it is a matter of time before whistle-blowers use it elsewhere. I suppose one can look at it as a full-employment reason for crisis PR practitioners."

Blog

 * Online Public Relations Thoughts: http://online-pr.blogspot.com/

Books

 * Integrated Corporate Communications: The Cost-Effective Use of Message and Medium, Quorum Publishing, 1995;
 * Online Public Relations: A Handbook for Practitioners, Quorum Publishing, 2001.