Journalists aren't the only ones who need to be honest

Reed Hillen
Rh972116@ohio.edu

As someone who is going into a Public Relations, it was so nice reading about the damage of dishonesty in advertising. I found myself nodding along with Bob Garfield from adage.com. KFC is nothing but unhealthy food, there is nothing wrong with that but that is what it is. The company trying to promote their unhealthy food as healthy made for some pretty bad consequences. For one, legal actions were taken against the company. The FTC fined the company for the misleading advertising.

Not only is KFC facing legal consequences, but that comes off as dishonest towards consumers. KFC is not a new company, most people know their food and know that it is unhealthy. A smarter approach to their advertising would be to be honest about their food, KFC is comfort food so that would probably be their best option. KFC also faced legal action after they allegedly were shorting people on their amount of chicken on the chains $20 bucket.

Advertisers aren't the only ones who need to be honest with the public. It is important for public relations professionals to be honest with the public as well, especially in crises situations. If a company is already in the wrong, and the company tries to deny the situation and it comes out that they are lying the company will face a lot worse scrutiny.

If I was in a situation of public relations where my company messed up, such as an oil company with an oil spill, there would be steps I would take to appropriately deal with that honestly. The first step would be completely honest with the public, take ownership that this spill was our companies fault and apologize.  The second step would be to take accountability and help spend money and clean up the spill. Spending the money yourself is going to be the best option as your company is probably going to be fined anyway. The third step to this would be to announce prevention efforts, what is our company going to do to make sure this never happens again. This method isn't going to be perfect, people are still going to be mad, but this is much better than lying about the event and having people never forgive your company.

If I was in advertising I would treat the situation with the same respect for my audience. If I am a fast food chain and claim I am coming out with a new vegan patty but then it actually comes out that it contains beef, public trust will be terrible after. Not to mention the potential legal action that could be placed against the company. When the public doesn't trust you, advertising just doesn't work. Even if I was telling the truth, if I have lied to the public in the past, they just won't believe it.

Journalists obviously need to be honest as well, but PR and advertisers need to be just as honest. If one of those three groups is dishonest it brings all of them down in the public eye. With the recent turn in public trust towards the media with President Trump often calling out the media for "fake news"it would be interesting to see how the public perceives works of public relations. If this direction keeps moving forward it will be very difficult for these professions moving forward. It is difficult to gain trust if no one listens to you and I think people stop listening to you when they catch you in a lie. It's becoming a snowball effect, this is why it's so important for the journalism and PR community to hold each other accountable. When KFC is lying to the public it is journalists job to call them out for that. The same goes if a journalist is being dishonest about a company.

photo from bradsdeals.com