Journalists vs PR: surely no contest?

Commenting on Roy Greenslade's MediaGuardian article: Truth-telling hacks defeat the flacks

The Media Society and the Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR) jointly hosted a seminar/debate, "Hacks and flacks: can there ever be a marriage?"

It's when there's so much PR copy being published as news by overworked or understaffed news organisations that the line becomes blurred between journalism and churnalism.

I mean no offence, as PR staff have a valid job to do, but its the use of their content in an ever-challenging news content environment that's creating a problem.

There's surely no competition between a theoretically unbiased, trained journalist against a PR employee directly leaning towards their employee's viewpoint.

Same goes for council 'newspapers'. The lines become blurred for the public until they can't recognise the difference.