Last week, a stunning event in the world of “celebrity justice” served notice to corporate governance and risk management practitioners everywhere: The Era of Transparency is upon us, and there is no going back.

TMZ.com is a celebrity gossip content provider that normally covers/stalks Lindsay Lohan’s habits clubbing, Christian Bale’s on-set outbursts, Brangelina’s brood and other A- through D-list celebrities. The site published a post -– “Bailout Bank Blows Millions Partying in L.A.” –- describing how TARP-recipient Northern Trust sponsored a golf event and an après-golf string of entertainment events for clients.

Was this “coverage” of a corporate governance issue by “gossip activists” a matter of a slow celebrity-news day? I honestly don’t think so …

… In fact, I think this story illustrates an issue that too many corporate risk managers, IR executives, and PR/communications professionals refuse to address: communicating to stakeholders at a time when stakeholders can, and want to, see inside the inner workings of an organization with much greater speed, ease, and clarity.

Too many companies treat investor relations, external communications, and public relations as a one-size-fits-all challenge. The overriding mentality is, simply, “What do we need to do to keep our company out of a negative front page Wall Street Journal article?” These companies have developed structures and layers of insulation to prevent prying eyes from “seeing too much” of the organization’s inner workings.

I know: As a business-trade writer specializing in the identification and sharing of best practices, I often get treated as if I’m Bob Woodward trying to expose some imaginary indiscretion the company may have committed.

The problem is, thanks to Internet technology -– which has greatly increased the flow and precision of information into and out of (think about employees who blog anonymously) organizations -– it is nearly impossible to keep prying eyes out of the most inner workings of an organization.

The defensive crouch so many PR and IR practitioners assume ranges from useless to harmful (when confronted with bewilderingly misplaced defensiveness from corporate PR folks, even I -– almost an anti-Woodward -– have been tempted to dig deeper, or at least pass a tip along to my investigative reporting pals: “Hey, you might want to look into this company: they’re hiding something.”)

Instead of trying to futilely defend and obfuscate in response to inquiries about their company, these communicators should focus their energies on more productive work, like anticipating the internal and external impact of organizational decisions and behavior so that senior decision-makers can be prepared to deal with reality honestly and constructively.

Yes, that’s a very brief and high-level conclusion for a broad treatise on reinventing corporate IR and PR. It’s a start, and I’ll be writing about the New Era of Transparency a lot more in the days ahead -– with greater clarity and precision. ###