ANY CLIENT, ANY TIME?

Public relations columnist Jim Dingwall wrote an interesting article a couple of years ago in the online publication PR Canada (for which I write the ethics column) that provides us chapter and verse on the ups and downs of creating a strategic PR campaign for biker gangs with his tongue, no doubt, planted firmly in his cheek. ^{[ 2]} Or was it?

He was motivated to write on this topic from a news story carried across Canada on a wire service in mid-November 2001. The news emanated from a conference hosted by the Halifax Regional Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to help police officers learn to deal with motorcycle gangs whose main means of support seems to be organized crime, including drug trafficking .

During that conference, a top RCMP officer was quoted in the local press as saying that these gangs are becoming ˜ smarter , more sophisticated and more aggressive even hiring public relations firms to sanitize their image [emphasis added]. These biker gangs no doubt decided that their images needed a bit of cleaning up in light of the fact that they were (and continue to be) heavily publicly associated with a variety of unsavoury activities, including drug trafficking and violence. Whether or not they truly are involved in these didn't seem to be the issue. The issue was that they are perceived this way by the public.

Whereas it is the purview of the public relations practitioner to develop and nurture the corporate image, we can logically conclude that there are public relations ˜professionals who are willing, if not able, to provide public relations counsel to these kinds of clients . This is no joke. This is an ethical quagmire that has numerous complications and few clear answers ”because the lines over which an ethical PR practitioner dare not step are murky indeed.

^{[ 2]} Dingwall, J [accessed 14 October 2003] PR for Biker Gangs: The Opportunity from Heck. http://www.prcanada.ca/TRADECRAFT/GANGT.HTM