#EthicsMatter - Is ethical public relations an oxymoron?
To many, “ethical PR” sounds as incongruous as ethical embezzlement. On one level that’s not too surprising. After all, research shows that most of the general public consider PR people “smart, friendly, liars.” In fact, “liar” is the most commonly used word to describe PR people.1
Some say it’s because the craft is defined by its lowest common denominator. While barbers and hairdressers need to be licensed, literally anybody can hang out a shingle and claim to be practicing public relations. And if there are codes of conduct, they’re usually voluntary, with few if any enforcement mechanisms.
PR practitioners are widely considered “spin doctors,” hired to make the good look better and the bad look good. Even PR people seem to have a low opinion of the practice. When the U.S. edition of PRWeek last checked, back in 2012, 35 percent of PR practitioners said their own industry was “fundamentally dishonest.” Nearly three quarters (73%) confessed they lie in the course of their work.
I worked in PR for more than three decades and have been writing about it for more than 15 years. I can safely say most PR people I know try to be ethical. But in the ethics workshops I've given over the years I've discovered that, while practitioners know something like lying is unethical, they have great difficulty explaining why with any precision. And it’s amazing how elastic concepts such as truth, respect, and loyalty can be.
If you can't explain why something is wrong, the likelihood you will recognize it -- much less avoid it -- declines precipitously. And the likelihood that you will interpret it rather loosely increases even more steeply. Who knew philosophy would have so much relevance to a PR career?
In fact, I can’t think of a major PR crisis of recent years that wasn’t rooted in an ethical lapse. Even when it started as an Act of God, it became a crisis because someone didn't act ethically. One engine fire in a cruise ship might be an accident. But when it happens multiple times, you have to wonder if the company isn't irresponsible.
Good communications skills are only the ticket of entry to a public relations career. At the more senior levels you are less likely to be consulted on what to say than on what to do. And while you’ll probably never be asked to lie, you’ll often need the grit of a coal miner to find the truth. It will be scattered across the organization’s darkest corners and jealously guarded.
Assuming you have that kind of grit, you’ll face another challenge – recognizing the truth when you finally dig it out.
What, after all, is truth?
Philosophers have been arguing about the meaning of “truth” for millennia. A barebones, dictionary definition of truth is “conformity to facts.” But we now live in a time of “alternative facts.” The late U.S. Senator Daniel Moynihan once said people are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. Behavioral science suggests his analysis was, at best, aspirational. Few of us consider the facts before forming an opinion. We are all more likely to filter available facts through our pre-existing opinions.
It happens unconsciously, driven by ancient mental gymnastics -- like confirmation bias and selective hearing -- that were more suited to protecting us from dangers in the jungle than navigating modern society. To help counter those distortions, over the years, I’ve developed a working definition of truth in the practice of public relations.
Truth is all the information a reasonable person needs to make an intelligent, voluntary decision, free of coercion.
That’s the level of truth people should have before deciding to buy a company’s products, work for it, invest in it, or welcome it into their community. It reflects a deeper understanding of public relation’s role in the construction of meaning.
Think about it: isn't that what PR is all about? Whether informing, persuading, or mediating, we’re working with people’s current feelings, attitudes, and understanding to construct a new meaning for our company, organization, or brand. Ideally, a meaning favorable to our client.
But meaning exists across a continuum, from meaningless to meaningful. And from misleading to truthful. Ethical public relations operates at the meaningful and truthful end of that continuum if it can answer “yes” to these five questions:
Is what I’m doing or saying grounded in good purpose? That is, does it give people all the information they reasonably need to make an intelligent decision? Is what I’m asking them to think or do actually good for them?
Does it demonstrate care for their well-being? Would I consider it considerate and attentive if I were in their position?
Does it respect people’s human dignity and right to reason? That is, am I treating people as means to what I want or as individuals who have goals of their own and the right to pursue them? Am I manipulating their emotions or reasoning to the point they’re incapable of making a truly voluntary decision?
Is it in the public interest? Do my goals serve the general welfare of society? Am I violating anyone’s rights? Am I respecting the foundational principles of free societies, such as a free press and right to assembly?
Can I be proud of what I’m doing or saying? Would my parents, spouse, or kids say it reflects the kind of person I claim to be, that I should be?
While these questions may sound theoretical, they have practical application. For example, I was once asked if it was acceptable to follow a widely accepted custom in some foreign countries of giving reporters an envelope of cash to encourage them to write favorably about the company. It really was common in that country at the time. Reporters expected it. All our competitors did it. And the cost of not doing it was clear – ranging from no coverage to negative coverage.
Some told me it was no different than tipping a waiter. Reporters, like waiters, work for low wages; they depend on tips to get by. And who are we to challenge local customs?
But it seemed to me that paying reporters to run a news release violates a number of ethical principles.
Paying for a good story is not a legitimately “good purpose.” When people read a newspaper, they have the right to know the true source of the articles they read. Even on the assumption the release contained no misleading information, its appearance in the paper would give it news value it might not otherwise have, which is in itself misleading.
Hiding the payment doesn’t respect readers’ right to reason by depriving them of information that would almost certainly influence their opinion of the resulting story.
Rather than demonstrating care for the reporter’s readers, our potential customers, it harms them by violating their right to full information, including the fact that the story was a paid placement.
Paying for the news to be run, without revealing it, is not in the public interest. It corrupts one of any democracy's key institutions -- a free press.
No one could be proud of this practice. It’s clearly dishonest; otherwise, why the envelope? Tipping a waiter is done in the open for everyone, including the waiter's employer to see. But the waiter's employer would likely frown on a gratuity quietly slipped to a server prior to the meal to ensure priority service. Such behavior would put other diners at a disadvantage and endanger the employer's reputation.
Answer those five questions and you will be tapping into the major theories of ethical decision making over the last 2,500 years. Fail to answer “yes” to any, and you’ll just confirm what most people already think of public relations practitioners.
1 Callison, C., Merle, P. F. & Seltzer, T. Smart friendly liars: Public perception of public relations practitioners over time. Public Relations Review. Volume 40, Issue 5, December 2014, Pages 829-831.
Dick Martin writes about public relations and marketing, following a 33-year career with AT&T where he was chief communications officer. He is the author of six books, including Public Relations Ethics: How To Practice PR Without Losing Your Soul, co-written with Donald K. Wright of Boston University. Martin’s latest book is Marilyn: A Woman In Charge, a biography of his predecessor at AT&T Marilyn Laurie who was the first woman to serve on the executive committee of a Fortune 10 company in the United States.
Any thoughts or opinions expressed are that of the author and not of Global Alliance.