My name is Grace Waite, a third year PR student from Lincoln University. I hope that one day in the near future, I will be sat in the office of a PR firm, ploughing through my first project and awaiting the next task, but one thing that concerns me, in this exciting world of PR, what will happen to my morals? It is inevitable that when one decides to venture into the world of PR, there will be touchy subjects to be dealt with and sensitive issues that will need addressing, but should we let our own morals get in the way of what is best for the organisation? Would I be comfortable lying to the public in order to cover up something that would eventually lead to bad publicity? I want to write this blog in order to explore the ethics, morals and values when it comes to PR and the individuals involved. We know deep down that telling the truth is the ‘right’ thing to do, but is it always the ‘necessary’ thing to do? I would be very interested to find out your views, have you ever been in a sticky situation? How did you handle it? And do you think PR has a duty to tell the truth?
Many of us hold similar morals. Most of us in our day-to-day lives wouldn’t lie, steal or cheat. But what happens when we are no longer thinking about our own morals but instead the morals of an organisation? Do our morals suddenly change? Would we lie in order to cover up something we’re not proud of? Would we cheat our way through the system in order to get a good story out? Sometimes a person’s morals in everyday life may be completely different to their ethics in business practice. A journalist may be a kind and loving family man, a regular church goer and may be actively involved in charity and the community. But when this honest character sits at his office desk, the clock ticks ever closer to his deadline, does this man become a ruthless and cunning individual, maybe unethical; to ensure that his story is the one everyone reads? To make his boss happy? He may make decisions which go against his own morals and push his boundaries to the limit in order to get the story out, but, why wouldn’t he? In a cut-throat industry such as this where only the strong and determined survive, isn’t he obligated to take on this Jekyll and Hyde persona?
In PR, morals and values are a very grey area. There are no right or wrong answers, and no text book will tell you what path you must go down in order to be a ‘model’ PR practitioner. So, is honesty always the best policy? Or will telling the truth damage your reputation? There are infinite examples of organisations covering up the details, and also of those owning up to the truth, some successful, some not so successful. But these cannot be used as guides on how to tackle our own challenges. All organisations are different, all with their own characteristics and reputations to sustain. An organisation renowned for its ethical trading and fair-trade ingredients, may not want to let slip that the materials for their packaging is sourced from cutting down trees in the rainforest. So should they lie? Of course, it would keep their reputation intact, but would we eventually find out anyway?
And if we did, would it prove to be even more damaging than if they had simply told us in the first place? The question is, should we use our own morals and values when dealing with matters of this nature, or should individuals in the PR industry adopt a split personality? On the one hand they may be sincere, compassionate individuals. On the PR side they may become sly and deceitful in order to maintain the reputation of the organization. Or would a mix of one’s own morals and their ‘whatever’s-best-for the-company’ morals be the best solution? It is true that PR practitioners have (or should have?) a duty to hold an honest and responsible regard for public interest but this may not always lead to the truth.
The Truth About PR...if Any? 
Honesty, transparency and accountability are the three pillars that are most important in PR in my experience. PR is all about relationship building with clients, journalists and colleagues. Open communication develops trust.
You need to nurture your relationship with your clients so they feel comfortable in sharing business issues with you. As a PR consultant, you can offer a range of different solutions with anticipated outcomes so whatever the challenge you can work out the best approach together. Treat journalists exactly the same as clients – you need both clients and journalists on your side to be successful. And, if you’re not sure how to best deal with something, draw on the experience of your colleagues.
I once had a fashion client who had beautifully cut clothes, made from quality fabrics – it was a simple and feminine collection. Journalists loved it when they got their hands on it, but when it came to photography its simplicity made it boring to shoot. The label had huge success in the US and a big celebrity fan base, but while we were waiting for the celeb images to push, we needed to get some results. Faced with a real possibility of not having any cuttings at the next monthly client meeting, I called my journalist contacts and told them I needed a favour. I had that horrible feeling in my guts as I did it, I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing, but it worked – I put that down to the relationships I’d developed over time.
On that occasion being honest with journalists saved me from having to face an unhappy client – was I unethical? I like to call it resourceful.
Indeed that sounds like a very useful relationship to have and you were certainly lucky to have well that established relationship to fall back on in times of crisis. It does make me wonder about these PR practitioners who do act unethically. How do they deal with the day to day issues of PR without the aid of well established and honest relationships? And on the side of journalism, what happens when a journalist under pressure, uses information from a practitioner to turn a story sour. In a sound relationship, it may be hard to think of one side turning on the other, but as we know it happens all the time, especially now when the industry seems to be at its most hostile. Journalists may take advantage of being a practitioners ‘confidante’ , and expose the weaknesses of the client or organisation they are working for. A very unethical practice, but true to life nonetheless.
Professional integrity in PR means acting in the best interests of your client but there still has to be an ethical foundation to that if you’re going to be trusted. As a journalist, I’m not going to place any trust in a PR that tells me blatant fibs. I’ll stop dealing with them and that will have negative repercussions for their client.
In the example of the unethical packaging on the fair trade products, the answer is that the company in question has to change the packaging immediately and a good PR person would be advising the client of that in the strongest possible terms. An attempt to cover something like that up could permanently ruin the brand.
The same approach to ethics applies to journalists. Being unethical or deliberately distorting the truth for a cheap headline is going to harm your reputation eventually (in most cases anyway, although I can think of a few tabloid columnists who’ve been getting away with it for years). Although journalists don’t like to admit it, they do rely on PRs for access to exclusives and if you deliberately distort a story, the PR will soon find another media outlet they like better.
Indeed I agree. In this industry, we may choose to be cut-throat individuals, creative spin doctors and leave our moral regard at the door. Great, if this is what a client wants. I may find myself in a job being asked to conduct lie after lie for an organisation to keep their image intact, and perhaps I may be successful in doing so. Well that’s swell for the organisation, but where does that leave my own reputation? How could I build on my own contacts if everyone thinks of me as untrustworthy? No other company may ever want to employ me and journalists may not give me the time of day. A very sticky situation!
The ethics of a PR professsional is something that seems to come up time and time again. After working in the industry for around 10 years, I feel that generally PRs do their very best to advise clients on issues and potential issues that may arise from questionable behaviour or choices.
In the end, it’s not a PR’s call however, and on some occasions it’s been PRs picking up the proverbial when advice has not been followed.
In my career we’ve made decisions on which clients to actually work with, something that’s not really been discussed here. For example, if you don’t use or believe in a consumer product on a moralistic principle, why would you take them on as a client. This is something that our agency has stood by and continnues to use as a decision mechanism for potential new business.
When it comes to choices PRs have made on promoting their clients, then lying is something I’m strongly against. However, when dealing with fun, fluffy consumer ideas and campaigns, is the odd fib really a problem? When dealing with a B2B client and a serious issue relating their their business or industry, then lying is, and never will be, acceptable. I think there has to be a judgement call.
What’s that old fact (you see that’s an interesting word in PR too!), everyone tells between 6 to 200 lies a day? And don’t get me started on statistics!!!
It seems that your agency has created some good guidelines in which to work by. Accepting only clients with sound moral standards will establish you as a reputable agency. However what happens when a client you are representing is suddenly faced with a crisis? Would you still work for a client who suddenly ran into problems of an unethical nature? And what would happen to your reputation as an agency?
I like your view on the lying front. Lying in serious situations is a very awkward topic and I agree that perhaps it is best to keep the lying to minimum in these scenarios. It is interesting that you deem that ‘the odd fib’ is acceptable in the more mundane activities of PR. I am very open minded about PR and accept that lies are told on a daily basis. I am also in agreement that these ‘white lies’ are much more tolerable. However it could be viewed that whether they are small fibs or big whoppers, lying is lying. Some may view that the moment you lie about anything, your breaking the boundaries of ethics.
It is my own personal opinion that occasional lies could be acceptable, just as long as they don’t come back to haunt you!
Interesting analogy with Jekyll and Hyde and the split personality of the industry. It would be fascinating to interview PR poeple working for the tabaco companies, to see what their ethics were. Fun clip really makes you think.
A worthwhile debate. As a journalist, I think that PRs should always tell the truth – mainly because it would make my job a whole lot easier. The reality is that most PRs, especially in cut-throat sectors, will simply weigh up whether they are likely to get caught or not and work back from there. In my area, marketing and advertising, lies are routinely told every day and it is accepted as one of those things. Typical question to an ad agency PR is: ‘Have you won x account?’ PR: ‘No, we haven’t heard anything.’ It later emerges that they had indeed won but had to lie because the client had told them not to tell the press. This is further confused by the rise of the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) which prevents people from legally telling the truth. One of my good contacts lied to me recently because she had signed one of these. ‘Telling the truth’ can be an elastic concept. Is putting a press release out about good financial results then ‘forgetting’ the following year when sales are down a form of lying? Recently I asked a drinks company for their latest results and I was sent ones from the start of the company’s financial year. I asked whether there were any more up-to-date figures and was told in rather strangely worded language that the figures they had sent were the most accurate because the company ‘prefers to give out full year results because this gives a better picture’. No surprise that when I actually did some work myself I found the half-year figures they were worse than the full year ones. I doubt this policy would have existed had the half-year figures been strong.
My examples are not exactly Watergate-type scandals but I suspect it is these types of mundane ‘grey area’ truth issues that PRs grapple on a day-to-day basis rather than huge earth-shattering cover-ups.
I do like your examples. As a PR student with no real experience, I have limited knowledge of what it is really like to work in the industry other than what is taught in the classroom. Most of my research consists of looking the bigger PR issues, crisis and disasters simply because that is usually all that gets written about. Reading these comments is much more refreshing as you get more of a sense of the smaller intricate activities that make up PR, and the implications which occur as a result. So your examples may not be how you put it ‘Watergate-scandals’, but they are perhaps the most relevant to the industry.