Ethics in Public Relations

A Guide to Best Practice

Patricia J Parsons

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780749477271
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Public Relations
• Index: Business

The weight of social responsibility in public relations (PR) has never been more pronounced. Ensure the professionalism and credibility of your business using the practical tips and guidance in this book, written by a leading academic in the field and recommended for PR students and practitioners alike. Ethical practice in any professional discipline is guided by age-old philosophical perspectives, but its modern parameters are continually evolving. Ongoing developments in technology, social media and social contexts mean that public relations and its practices are constantly changing, and so do the ethical questions faced by practitioners in the field. Face the ethical questions and dilemmas that are inherent to public relations and ensure you practice across the public relations spectrum in an ethical and socially responsible manner with this fully updated guide, packed with useful tools and insights to support those in PR and corporate communications. Engaging and accessible, Ethics in Public Relations offers a lively exploration of the key ethical concerns present in the public relations world today, written by an accredited academic with over 26 years' professional experience in the field. Fully updated, this third edition includes an entirely new chapter on the uses of ethics in social media, covering topical issues such as blogger engagement and the relationship between employee social media activity and organizational reputation.

Part one

What lies beneath

Recognizing, facing and dealing with ethical dilemmas in our everyday practice of public relations and corporate communications are the three most important aspects of the realities of ethics. Underneath this surface, however, are fundamental concerns about definitions (can we come to a consensus?), principles (what are the most important values in public relations?) and even some theory (how would the philosophers have viewed some of our issues?) that can be truly useful in practice.

The chapters that follow are devoted to setting up an ethical framework by examining ethical theory with an eye to practical applications. We can hardly discuss the everyday practice if we don’t come to some consensus on definitions of such terms as ethics, professionalism and the truth. In addition, issues such as rights and rules need some discussion so that we can move on to looking at you, the practitioner, and the ethical dilemmas inherent in the work you do.

01

Before we begin: New profession… or one of the oldest?

The cosmos is neither moral nor immoral; only people are.

He who would move the world must first move himself.

EDWARD ERICSON

It’s September. The air is filled with anticipation on the university campus. I watch the new students eagerly file into a classroom of higher learning, every one of them with a slightly different belief about their chosen field of study – public relations – a hard one to explain to family and friends. And most have the often misguided impression that what they need most to be successful in this field is to be a so-called ‘people person’.

I move quickly to disabuse them of this notion. I tell them that if they are people persons, then perhaps they are most suited to working as one of the helping professionals – be a physician, a nurse, a massage therapist, I tell them, but PR may not be what you think it is. I tell them that in this field of public relations they’ll be spending a lot more time relating to their computers and their deadlines, especially in the early years of their careers. Then I ask these neophyte public relations practitioners to rate a series of personal characteristics according to how important they believe each one is in the successful practice of public relations. On the list are such qualities as intelligence, flexibility, personality, maturity, creativity, sophistication, courage and integrity.

I gather the papers to tabulate their responses and note that these rarely vary from year to year. With few exceptions, integrity rates on the lower end of the scale of importance, often dead last. Does this mean that we can expect public relations practitioners of the future to have the moral scruples of Attila the Hun? Or does it mean that in the grand scheme of things, they have not given much conscious thought to how personal integrity and character fit into their dream job? Maybe they do not truly understand the meaning of the word integrity. Perhaps they’re a bit like you.

So, how do you rate in the integrity department? Have you ever written and issued a news release that was less than truthful – misleading, perhaps? Would you do it if your boss asked you to do so? Have you ever tried to bribe a reporter? Or would you? (It wasn’t really a bribe, you say, just a small token.) Are you even aware when you cross the line? Do you have the personal tools for solving these everyday moral dilemmas you face?

There is little doubt that our publics – including employees, the media, our clients and consumers, to name but a few – are already highly sceptical of what is communicated to them on a daily basis. We can’t really afford to contribute any more to this mistrust, which leads us to the question: just how important is ethics in PR?

You may remember Ivy Lee as the so-called father of modern public relations. But you are probably less familiar with his partner Tommy Ross. I can no longer recall where I read it but he is reported to have said ‘Unless you are willing to resign an account or a job over a matter of principle, it is no use to call yourself a member of the world’s newest profession – you’re already a member of the world’s oldest.’ Ouch, that hurts.

Public relations ethics: oxymoron?

More than one public relations practitioner has had to defend the occupation when confronted by a hostile sceptic suggesting that ‘public relations ethics’ is an oxymoron. Indeed, critics can provide us with chapter and verse on the more unsavoury aspects of this advocacy field. Consider media critic Joyce Nelson’s 1989 description of public relations in her book Sultans of Sleaze: Public relations and the media: ‘The power of the PR industry is demonstrated by its… remarkable ability to function as a virtually invisible “grey eminence” behind the scenes, gliding in and out of troubled situations with the ease of a Cardinal Richelieu and the conscience of a mercenary.’1 And it is clear that she is not alone in her view.

There is little doubt that, even today, public relations as an industry still suffers from a bad reputation. Consider journalism professor Stuart Ewen’s 1996 book PR! A Social History of Spin, where he describes what he calls a ‘foundational conceit’ in the field of public relations – conceit born of the notion that the public mind can and should be manipulated. In addition, media watchers John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton continue to provide a running commentary on the unsavory aspects of public relations as they see them, as chronicled on their sweeping PR Watch website www.prwatch.org, and in their books Toxic Sludge is Good for You!: The public relations industry unspun; Trust Us, We’re Experts! How industry manipulates science and gambles with your future and The Best War Ever: Lies, damned lies and the mess in Iraq.

Perhaps we need to take a more careful look at how the public may have come to the conclusion that our chosen field of practice and study has the moral character of a con man.

A tarnished history

There’s a Yiddish proverb that goes like this: ‘A half-truth is a whole lie.’ Whereas much of the history of public relations might not be peppered with in-your-face lies, one could make the case that half-truths are rampant. There is little doubt that the public’s image of public relations is less than spotless. Indeed, the media tend to lead the public to believe that there is something just a little, or sometimes a lot, dishonest about public relations. Half-truths or whole lies, is the public justified in this opinion?

American author and creator of the Ziggy cartoons Tom Wilson is reputed to have said ‘Honesty is the best image’, and that comment, perhaps more than any other, speaks to the need for integrity and veracity in public communication. It seems that there is a practical side to the notion of ethics in public communication. We are in the business of image-building for employers and clients, while at the same time building an image for our own field. Historically, honesty has not always been a part of that image.

Whenever anyone points out to us, the modern public relations practitioners, that P T Barnum represented much of what is dishonest in the history of this field, we’re quick to point out that he was a ‘publicist’ who lived in a different era. No one could truly call him a member of the public relations ‘profession’ (more about that term later). Every professional discipline has evolved. But even throughout the 20th century when modern public relations practice was born, we continued to find ample fodder for the image that public relations is perhaps less than honest. Modern public relations in the developed world today can arguably trace its roots to the United States of the early 20th century and people such as Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee. In his book PR! A Social History of Spin, social historian and media critic Stuart Ewen describes Bernays as ‘a farsighted architect of modern propaganda techniques who, dramatically, from the early 1920s onward, helped to consolidate a fateful marriage between theories of mass psychology and schemes of corporate and political persuasion.’2

A nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays was convinced that a ‘public relations counsellor’ (a term he is reputed to have coined) should use social science approaches to manipulate the masses into thinking the way they ought to think, and the way they ought to think is the way the social elite thinks. In 1928, Bernays wrote in his book Propaganda, ‘The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society… Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism… constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.’3 While you may not appreciate Bernays’ remarks about manipulation and all that this connotes, his reference to the power of public relations cannot be ignored.

In the 1930s, public relations pioneer Carl Byoir is reputed to have invented the bogus grassroots campaign by setting up dummy organizations such as the National Consumers’ Tax Organization to lobby against special taxes on chain stores, a tactic which was carried out at the behest of his client, grocery giant A & P.4 Retrospectively, this kind of approach seems clearly dishonest to most PR practitioners. Yet a quick perusal of the PR Watch website5 provides a running list of current front groups whose backers and funders are not always transparent – clearly Byoir’s legacy. The organization PR Watch describes itself as one that helps the public ‘recognize manipulative and misleading PR practices’. Their two main staff members are John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, co-authors of two recent books mentioned above that take aim at dishonest and manipulative public relati...