Responsibilities of a PR Professional

Bailey Hays
bh665415@ohio.edu


I've always wanted to be a publicist. Drafting press releases, planning events, managing social media and dealing with any crisis has always been so interesting to me. One day, I want to even have my own PR firm. But, how do I get there? What is the most important part about working in public relations? What must every publicist have in order to be successful? Easy. Ethics and responsibilities.

When you're a PR professional, you are always working with other people. YOUR clients. It's so important to establish good relationships and have trust with them. Otherwise, you will lose them, which is probably not something any good PR professional would want. Without clients, you don't have a firm.

A good example I can think of where poor ethics and responsibilities of PR professionals lacked was the crisis of United Airlines forcibly removing a passenger from its plane. This article explains that United overbooked the flight and then asked for volunteers to get off the plane since others needed to get to work. An asian man and his wife were dragged off of the plane.

Obviously, this is a huge issue that went viral on social media. The public relations team didn't post an apology until people said they were going to boycott. With an event like this, an apology and explanation should have been issued RIGHT AWAY. As a PR professional, it's our job to get information our there to the public and try to establish a good relationship after this incident.

Source: viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com               

The first apology from the CEO was criticized a lot. It was viewed as insensitive after everything that happened. They then had to release a SECOND apology. This whole case is a very good example of how PR professionals were not responsible and proactive. The article we read in class explained that people need to know their role. The role of a CEO is to "create, foster and communicate the culture of an organization." The CEO of United Airlines did not act in this way when it came to issuing an apology.

This video does a great job at explaining how be ethical while having a job in PR. I believe that being responsible while working and constantly practicing good ethics is the foundation to having a successful career in PR. Our relationship with our clients is about trust and communication. If we don't have that, we don't have a job.

There needs to be open communication, honesty about what's truly happening and a promise from the PR professional that they are doing whatever they can to fix the problem.