The Government, Journalism and Public Relations

Gentry Bennett
gb455712@ohio.edu

The creation of journalism and journalistic ethics are surrounded by the government. Without the government, we wouldn't have First Amendment rights. Without First Amendment rights, we wouldn't have freedom of the press, thus eliminating the journalism we know today.

I come from a different side of journalism than those that populate the newsroom. I am studying public relations, defined by PRSA (the Public Relations Society of America) as "a strategic communication process that build mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics" (PRSA.org). Based off of this definition, newsroom journalism and public relations are quite similar in that they both want to benefit the public.

Photo via Mic.com

Journalists faced massive ethical quandaries with the publishing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Although the Justice Department had already gone to court to ensure the publishing of the papers be blocked, the Washington Post picked up where the New York Times had left off and continued to publish after the court order.

In this instance, journalism brought justice to the people. Journalism represented the citizens' right to know what their government is doing and to inform them of governmental happenings. In this regard, journalism and the government were butting heads.

Like I mentioned earlier, government is the reason journalism in the United States has freedom of the press. What is public relation's relationship with the government? Does public relations also bring justice to the people, or is it the other way around?

The relationship between public relations and government is a complicated one. Advertising, a subset of the public relations model, is monitored by the government. The Federal Trade Commision (FTC) oversees and regulates advertising at a federal level. The FTC's goal (via FTC.gov) is:

"To prevent business practices that are anticompetitive or deceptive or unfair to consumers; to enhance informed consumer choice and public understanding of the competitive process; and to accomplish this without unduly burdening legitimate business activity."

In this regard, the FTC is the advocate for the people. Where journalism's goal is to inform citizens in order to make them educated and informed people, public relation's goal is to inform consumers so that they can make informed decisions about what they consume.

Photo via IMDb

Many people are familiar with the fairly recent documentary Blackfish, a deep dive in to SeaWorld's business tactics and the alleged mistreatment of orcas in captivity at the theme parks. Blackfish launched a largely spread boycott of SeaWorld parks and the call for their mistreatment of animals to be stopped.

In response to Blackfish, SeaWorld launched an aggresive public relations campaign in order to fix their badly damaged reputation. This campaign included "fishy tactics," as quoted by an Outside magazine article. One such tactic included in the article is the skewing of poll results. The Orlando Business Journal conducted a poll on whether or not the documentary skewed people's thoughts of SeaWorld. Although the poll results said 99 percent of people's thoughts were not changed, it was later found out that 54 percent of these votes came from one IP address, located at SeaWorld.

While frowned upon, no formal cases were brought to the FTC concerning this campaign. However, multiple sources shined light on SeaWorld's public relations tactics and allowed consumers to see the whole story.

In this case, there are four main agendas: the public relations team for Blackfish, the public relations team for SeaWorld, the journalists reporting on the story, and the government's bodies that oversee the first three.

Which agenda is correct? It's hard to say- that is an ethical decision that is up to the consumer (you!).