- Mark Dolliver

The good news: "Advertising practitioners" didn't rank dead last in a Gallup survey that asked respondents to rate the "honesty and ethical standards" of people in 22 professions. The bad news: They still fared poorly, ranking below such notorious no-gooders as journalists, lawyers and business executives.

Two percent of respondents rated the honesty and ethical standards of advertising practitioners as "very high" and another 9 percent as "high." Forty-six percent gave them a grade of "average," while 29 percent said ad people's honesty and ethics are "low" and 9 percent "very low."

Nurses were atop the standings, as they have been consistently in these polls during the past decade, with a combined "very" high" and "high" vote of 83 percent. Druggists/pharmacists were the runners-up (66 percent), just ahead of medical doctors (65 percent). Also regarded as having high or very high honesty and ethical standards by at least half the respondents were police officers (63 percent), engineers (62 percent), dentists (57 percent), college teachers (54 percent) and clergy (50 percent).

At the bottom of the standings were car salespeople, with a mere 6 percent of respondents giving a very high/high rating to the honesty and ethics of people in this profession. Also faring worse than ad practitioners were HMO managers (8 percent), members of Congress (9 percent), stockbrokers (9 percent), insurance salespeople (10 percent) and senators (11 percent -- same as ad people, but with a worse very low/low vote).

With banks going bust (or surviving on federal bailouts) during the past year, it's unsurprising that bankers made a poor showing in this year's survey. Nineteen percent of respondents rated their honesty and ethical standards as very high or high, while 33 percent gave them very low or low marks.

Bankers still did better than the general category of "business executives," though (12 percent very high/high, 38 percent very low/low). As usual, respondents also took the opportunity to badmouth lawyers, giving members of that profession a very high/high vote of 13 percent and a very low/low vote of 40 percent.