Public Relations Ethics

The Real-World Guide

Trevor Morris, Simon Goldsworthy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000327984
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book is a pragmatic, case-rich guide to how current and future public relations practitioners can apply ethical principles and the industry's codes of ethics to their day-to-day work.

Authors Trevor Morris and Simon Goldsworthy draw on their years of industry and academic experience to illustrate key ethical issues and ground them in reality, all within an international frame of reference. Public Relations Ethics incorporates interviews with industry practitioners, offering contrasting perspectives as well as recent examples of real-life complaints and disciplinary issues. Provocative questions and exercises help readers grapple with ethical dilemmas and review the key scenarios and challenges that PR people face.

The book is ideal at the undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education levels as a core text for public relations ethics courses and a supplementary text for general public relations survey courses. Accompanying the text are online resources for both students and instructors, including lecture slides and links to further resources.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Introduction

People often invoke ‘ethics’ and talk about ethical and unethical behaviour. What do they mean by ‘ethics’? What foundations are ethics built upon, and what are the main strands of ethical thought? In what way do they relate to PR work? How do ethics overlap with the law? PR people are not employed as philosophers, nor indeed as lawyers, but they are greatly affected by what others think, and are subject to the law, so they need a fundamental awareness of ethical thought and why the law matters. In this introductory chapter, which serves as a starting point for the rest of the book, we look at these issues.

Imagine this. You’re being interviewed for a PR job that you want – and the person you hope to work for lobs a ‘what would you do?’ question at you, perhaps based on some current issue in the media. It’s quite likely that at least part of the question involves thinking about what would be seen as the ethical thing to do in a complicated situation. You’ve been put on the spot.

Or, you’re got the job you want and everything’s going well. But suddenly something comes up – maybe it’s an unexpected phone call from an important client when you can’t get hold of other people (it happens!). They make an urgent demand. You could do what they want, but you have doubts about whether it would be the ethical thing to do. On the other hand, you hardly want to upset the client – that could have serious consequences (not least financial …), for you, your colleagues and perhaps the agency itself.

These kinds of things and many more happen. The luxury of PR education – and training courses, and reading what follows in this book – is that you can think about these sorts of situations and put forward and discuss your ideas about what to do without the serious consequences that can flow from the decisions you make in real life. Socrates would have approved: as one of the founding fathers of ethical thought, the ancient Greek philosopher argued that moral knowledge could be achieved through debate and discussion, and that ‘virtue is knowledge’.

But in the real world you seldom have time to refer back to ethical theory, and it’s likely your colleagues and those who employ you would not be too impressed if you try to do so. This book is designed to help existing and would-be PR practitioners to deal with these realities, and to confront the kind of practical problems they will face in their working lives.

Nonetheless, it is useful to be aware of some of the theoretical underpinnings offered by academic authors, so we tackle some of the key ideas. But the emphasis of this book, as its subtitle suggests, is on real-world decision-making, the practical world of PR – an arena where complex issues are often hard to unravel and there are often downsides to any course of action – and despite that, you have to make, or contribute to, a decision and act in a particular way. To do this, we look at real cases, and speak to some of the key players.

It’s worth bearing in mind the context. Public relations is very much part of the world we all inhabit. The growth of PR means more and more people work in the field (although many, perhaps most, are not formally called PR people – and thereby hangs a tale). It has become a popular, high-profile occupation. In the last generation or so, it has come of age and is now used by all kinds of organisations (unless they are very small), and even by rich or powerful individuals, from presidents and prime ministers to almost every celebrity or billionaire you’ve ever heard of. It’s associated with all kinds of controversial issues and the rights and wrongs of PR activity are often debated by outsiders.

A library of books has been written to support PR education and training. The present authors have contributed to its shelves. Along the way we have written a little about ethics – we draw upon those writings here (we have not changed our overall thinking), but this is our first attempt to give it the full-length treatment it deserves.

While we cannot provide definitive answers to the dilemmas we all face, hopefully we can help you to think things through, be prepared, and be ready to offer good advice and better solutions to problems.

What Are Ethics?

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines ethics as: ‘The science of morals; the branch of knowledge that deals with the principles of human duty or the logic of moral discourse; the whole field of moral science.’ It further defines them as: ‘The moral principles or system of a particular leader or school of thought; the moral principles by which any particular person is guided; the rules of conduct recognised in a particular profession or area of human life.’ The last part of this definition is probably the most useful for our purposes, as we look at what is and is not acceptable in the field of PR practice. As we shall see, PR ethics find their main public expression in the codes of PR’s professional bodies which are now well established in most countries and internationally as well. These set out what is expected. The other parts of the definition highlight how important morality is to understanding what people mean by ethics. It is why PR ethics remain related to the study of moral philosophy, even if this seldom features on a day-to-day basis in the working world of public relations.

Some of the other terms in the definition are more relevant to everyday PR practice – the notion of the principles of human duty, for example, have a clear bearing on what PR people do and will feature in the next section. Similarly, the moral principles by which any particular person is guided are also highly relevant. Tellingly, the Cambridge philosopher Simon Blackburn’s Ethics: A Very Short Introduction¹ originally appeared under the title Being Good. Over and above the expectations of PR professional bodies or the media industries, we all – one hopes – feel that there some moral principles each of us should adhere to as individuals.

The Relevance of Ethical Theory

How Do We Decide What Is Ethical?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

(The Gospel according to St Luke, 6:31)

Why are we quoting the Bible in a book about PR ethics? Because for millennia the world’s religions have set out ethical principles at length and with enormous claims to authority – for another version, think of the biblical Ten Commandments, most but not all of which concern ethics. The world’s faith communities have always set out to answer ethical questions. Their notions of what it takes to be good often overlap, for example, the teaching that we should show consideration for others and love our fellow humans is shared by most religions. While holy scriptures and religious teaching may not be to the fore in the secular world which most western PR practitioners inhabit, they cannot simply be dismissed. First, the teachings of the world’s great religions, passed down through countless generations, have cast a long shadow and remain influential even for people who are no longer adherents. Second, many PR people today work in less secular environments and belong to faith communities.

Moral principles are also set out by non-religious movements, for example, humanism, and are fundamental to major secular political ideologies, such as socialism and environmentalism. Again, they often overlap with the principles of faith communities but do not claim any supernatural authority, although they have their own books which serve as sources of authority. As is the case with religion, the influence of socialist and environmentalist thought extends well beyond those who see themselves as adherents.

Influential political statements in the constitutions and founding documents of different nations are also important ethical building blocks. They include the Magna Carta of 1215, an English charter of rights, the impact of which has been felt well beyond the UK; the US Declaration of Independence of 1776, with its famous assertion that ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ are inalienable rights; and the French revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, which is also rooted in ideas of fundamental and universal rights and the philosophical thought of the Enlightenment (the intellectual movement which led to human reason challenging divinely-inspired teaching), and has come to be summed up in the expression ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’.

In living memory these earlier statements have helped to shape major international agreements such as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights (1948). Article 1 of the former states that: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’²

What all these influential statements of moral thought, whether religious or secular, have in common is that they seek to answer the question of what is right and claim a special political, intellectual and/or faith-based authority for their answers. In their own more modest way that is what PR’s professional bodies seek to do. Otherwise how are we to know how to be good?

Moral Relativism

Even a cursory glance at the world suggests that principles that are man-made can vary over time and in different societies. Key moral issues are viewed very differently by different groups even within the same societies – think, for example, about women’s rights, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, veganism and attitudes to immigration. Opinions shift, and abstract principles buckle under the pressure of events. The classical Greek pioneers of much thought about ethics, Plato and his pupil Aristotle, kept slaves (as did, much later, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson). In practice, a degree of flexibility seems to apply to some religious teachings, which are interpreted differently in different communities over time – some of the things that some of the major Christian churches permit today would have been unthinkable in past generations, and vice versa (for example, two hundred years ago many Christian churches condoned slavery). The idea that there is no absolute moral truth is called relativism.

However unattractive it may be to many moral philosophers – not least because of the danger that people can choose their ethics to suit them – relativism probably, and perhaps rightly, plays a big part in how most PR people approach their work (even if they don’t recognise or use the term). It has its philosophical basis: Aristotle thought ethics should be determined by ordinary people seeking goodness and that it involved finding a mean or compromise. Much more recently, as many of the grand moral narratives which guided people seem to have collapsed, postmodernist thought suggests that in our atomised world there is no objective moral truth.

PR is an international discipline, bringing together people from many countries and backgrounds to serve an enormous range of organisations and causes. An ability to relate to others, not least different clients and employers and journalists, is key to the job. Seeking to impose one’s views on others is seldom a good look. In practice, a one-size-fits-all ethical system would be hard to square with the variety of what is required, but neither would an anything-goes approach seem acceptable to most people. Box 1.1 presents a senior PR industry insider’s views of what they have encountered in different markets around the world.

Box 1.1 Different Attitudes around the World

According to a senior PR industry insider:

So let’s look at it this way. In different parts of the world there are really massively different standards and normalities and expectations. You can’t openly be gay in the Middle East. You will pay for coverage in India. In Russia, you are effectively part of the state. And the idea that there are common standards is just a fallacy. And quite frankly, the people in London and New York who say this know that they’re lying. They just have this worry about being seen as imperialists, saying that they know better than these other markets which is quite ironic, given the whole MeToo, diversity, liberal ethos they pedal otherwise.

In reality, the moral relativism of PR people within any country reflects the reality that they are not a cross-section of society. While it is easy to find exceptions, the PR practitioners of today tend to share a range of attributes: they have been educated to degree level, typically in an arts or humanities subject; they are relatively affluent; and most live and work in major cities. They are on average young and, especially at entry level, predominantly female (Box 1.2). In major PR centres, such as London, they come from a wide range of countries and cultures. The traits of PR work mean that they tend to be quite sociable, working and enjoying their leisure time with like-minded people and seeking social acceptance. Unsurprisingly, but often unconsciously, the characteristics we have just described play a major role in defining their ethical attitudes.³

Box 1.2 Characteristics of PR Practitioners

The world’s largest PR body, the UK’s Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), conducts regular censuses of PR practitioners. Its 2019 census found that the UK industry was 67 per cent female, with a median age of 33. Some 80 per cent are graduates, and 22 per cent have a master’s degree, while 20 per cent had attended a fee-paying private school, well above the national average. The average salary in the industry was £42,700 – again well above the national average.

What exactly characterises the attitudes of PR people? Short of undertaking extensive research it would be hard to prove, but based on our experience of the PR industry we would say they are as follows.

• PR people generally cleave towards the political centre ground – there are relatively few at either extreme of the political divide, although of course there are outliers, with PR people serving any cause you care to think of.
• Economically, they broadly accept free markets and private enterprise, albeit with plenty of qualifications and reservations: after all, most PR people work in the commercial world.
• They see themselves as socially liberal and tolerant in matters of race, gender and sexuality, and as exponents of cosmopolitan values. To be more specific, this mea...