Honesty and Ethics Are More Important Than Ever

Michael Kromer
mk428915@ohio.edu

The past ten years have seen a significant shift in the ratio of public relations professionals to news reporters. Much of this is coming as a result of the average wage of reporters compared to the average wage of public relations professionals. Because of the rise of PR specialists, the industry has an even greater need to stay ethical in its publication of releases and other media. While this does seem extremely logical, there may be some difficulty staying truthful, due to pressure from the corporation a specialist works for. This is why making the most ethical decisions possible and telling the absolute truth at all times, has become even more important not only for journalists, but for leaders in the business world as well.

Top Down Approach
Being ethical is not just the responsibility of the PR practitioner, but instead, it is also the job of the leadership in a company. This is simply because of the fact that in a corporate environment the specialists are going to look to their managers, the managers to their directors, and so on until they reach the CEO. So it is the job of leadership to set the standard of honesty, and making it normal to disagree if someone thinks a piece of content may come across as unethical.

                                                      Courtesy of harrishsairaman.com

Corporate Journalism
The importance of telling the truth as a public relations professional is more important than ever before because more and more, public relations is not just pitching a story to the media, but instead it is the job of the PR specialist to actually write the story and publish it as a paid article to promote the company the specialist is working for. In addition to this, according to a Nielsen Global study conducted in 2015, branded websites are the second-most-trusted advertising format, behind recommendations from friends and family. With an increased presence of the work of the public relations pro, and a very high level of trust in advertising, being honest and ethical has become of the utmost importance in the public relations field.

Ethics of Data Collection 
The Institute for PR and countless other publications, public relations professionals, academics, and data agrees that data itself has taken the front seat when is comes to driving public relations and advertising strategies. Simply put, advertising that is specifically targeted to its exact audience is going to be much more effective than the old-fashioned advertising of the 1950s and 1960s that just told consumers what they needed. Now everything is customizable and unique to each customer. There has truly been a public relations big data revolution. However, while this data is easily accessible through the internet, it is absolutely crucial that the use of data, its collection and distribution should be done in an ethical manner. It would be easy to mine private and personal information from consumers, but that would not just ruin the reputation of the company that the PR professional works for, but it would also harm the reputation of the professional himself.

What else does a public relations professional have if not his reputation? In the era of 'fake news' and clickbait, of new streams of advertising and increased use and access to customer data, it is more important than ever for top business leaders and public relations specialists alike to carefully manage the ethicality and honesty of the media they produce.