jd540914@ohio.edu
There seems to be a common misconception that those in the advertising and public relations fields are professional liars, in a sense; moral-less robots whose only mission in life is to sell you products and services that you don't want or need. In his piece, "Why we vote for liars," Jack Shafer wrote, "to lie about an issue is to be a politician. To lie about a corporation is to be a public relations executive" on Reuters' website. His belief is not very foreign to someone studying strategic communication, as it is something that we have more or less heard very often. What observers often forget to realize is the immense pressure that goes into PR work or the strong beliefs that those working in the industry hold.
This week's readings on ethics in the PR industry hit on some of those topics that Shafer implied or stated in his writing. In the Bulldog Reporter article on PR ethics and reputation, it is stressed that PR is all about damage control- those working for companies and agencies are not going around trying to create issues and dilemmas so that they can solve the issues. Modern public relations is all about trying to prevent a problem before it occurs. The article mentions a research project that was done on PR professionals from around the world, and how they feel about ethics and reputations. Some were lost their jobs or were put on lower positions because of ethical disagreements they had with those higher up with them. An important point they bring up is that being a "yes man" isn't necessarily a good thing in the realm of public relations.
A point that makes perfect sense to those with a grasp of strategic communication and public relations is that in PR, reputation is everything. More than everything, even. If you lose your credibility in the PR community you are effectively sunk.
In the Public Relations Society of America article that we read, it explains how workplace culture has a lot to do with how a firm or company is run. According to the article, the culture must start at the top and trickle down to employees and others in the company. They give the example of Rubert Murdoch and the scandal involving wiretapping and News of the World, and how even though he claimed to have known nothing of the scandal, his credibility was undermined and therefore people lost faith not only him but his whole operation.
Public relations is not immune to the symptoms of "fake news" and fact-twisting that has been debated and argued as of late. In more recent news, PRSA did take a stand on the current political situation, including the inauguration. When claims were made by Donald Trump's former press secretary Sean Spicer regarding the size of the inauguration crowd, it was not only news and information journalists who were taken aback, PRSA was as well. They issued a statement that "PRSA strongly objects to any effort to deliberately misrepresent information. Honest, ethical professionals never spin, mislead or alter facts." How is that for a profession of liars?
Upon my search for the fight against public relations stigmas, I stumbled upon an interesting website, Spin Sucks, whose mission is "to change the perception people have of the PR industry." These are professionals who work to provide resources on ethical challenges, and blog "to provide expert information and advice on current issues and trends surrounding marketing, communication, social media, entrepreneurship, search engine optimization, and advertising."
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