Importance of Transparency in Public Relations

Taniah Stephens 

taniah11stephens@gmail.com

Public relations and advertising is big on always being honest with their consumers, being an advocate to the public, being truthful. Another huge attribute that holds value to Public Relations code of ethics is transparency. 

While those attributes do apply and have their own rules of further detail on what core values to consider within each asset, transparency has their own rules as well. 

Transparency plays a vital role in public relations and advertising because it allows the professional to be honest with the consumer. In an article written by Millennium Agency, it goes into detail about the Importance of Transparency in Public Relations Strategy. It states that with being transparent with your consumers, it gives a level of loyalty and makes the brand that you work for become likable.

A great equation for transparency is: Transparency + Honesty = Loyal and Likable consumers. 

In going into more detail on how important it is that transparency is shown through the public relations and advertising business, I came across an article that went into detail about 7 important rules of being transparent. 

According to the article written by David B. Grinberg on the rules of being transparent, he states that if you don't follow these rules, "you might be tempted to bury a damaging story, your efforts can backfire, ruining your credibility and turning essential media contacts into enemies. When reading the rules, you can tell that the importance of getting the truth out has to be right, be accountable for being wrong and giving information out in a timely manner. 

Picture source: https://www.prdaily.com/7-rules-for-being-transparent/

                                     

With the world changing everyday through the media with this upcoming election and the COVID-19 pandemic, it is evident that PR agencies that they have to disclose information to the public, as their form of being transparent for the public eye. 

The PRSA Code of Ethics  core values in their Code of Ethics that disclosing information is a key role in their code of ethics. It states that in order to obtain to their duty of disclosing information, that they must "be honest and accurate in communications." 

The PRSA.org gives a document that shows an example of disclosure and transparency and how it shows the simple ways of giving complete, full disclosure of what is needed throughout the platform that you are using to give to readers and viewers and it must be transparent. 

No matter if you're in the PR and advertising field or the reporting field, just generally as a journalism as a whole, transparency is a key factor. Public relations makes transparency vital because you want consumers to trust in what you have and be able honest in what is necessary for the public.