THE TRUTH IN PUBLIC RELATIONS


THE ˜TRUTH IN PUBLIC RELATIONS

Public relations is a public communication function and as such its practitioners have responsibilities that speak to the greater good ”whether we like it or not. The public is sceptical of the truth of what is communicated to them and we really don't have a right to clog up the channels of public communication with more untruths or half-truths. Codes of ethics of professional associations of public relations practitioners provide chapter and verse on the need to tell the truth.

For example, the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) Code of Conduct says: ˜ Members of the Institute of Public Relations agree to deal honestly and fairly in business with employers , employees , clients , fellow professionals, other professions and the public [ 1]

The Canadian Public Relations Society's Code of Professional Standards is even more specific. It states, ˜A member shall practice the highest standards of honesty, accuracy, integrity and truth, and shall not knowingly disseminate false or misleading information. [ 2]

So it seems that telling the truth, while often deemed to be a casualty in the search for new and better ways to disseminate messages and persuade publics, is an important aspect of ethical public relations. Defining what the truth is in public relations is the challenge.

A PR researcher at Florida International University tried to do just that. [ 3] He wanted to figure out where to draw that line through a very murky area by surveying public relations educators' opinions about what constitutes ˜ truthful communication in public relations practice. First, the PR educators surveyed clearly defined it to be lying when PR practitioners ˜make factual declarations that they know to be untrue. Being misleading or evasive is a different story, however. It seems that the motivation behind withholding information is the key to truth telling in public relations ”not unlike that little white lie about your friend's awful sweater as we discussed earlier.

There is one situation in which it seems that telling the whole truth is not the most ethical course of action. If telling the truth outright is likely to harm one or more publics, then it seems that it is probably more ethical to avoid that full disclosure. After all, one of the first principles of ethics in any situation is to do no harm. Often, however, a judgement call is required here and it is the application of such judgement that calls into question the ethics of the decision-maker.

All of this seems like so much logical, common sense when it comes to ethics. Consider my own surprise to find a piece written by a Canadian public relations practitioner that was posted for at least two years on the CPRS Web site suggesting that taking on the role of advocate, which is at the heart of modern public relations, is somehow in conflict with truth telling, and furthermore isn't important anyway, as long as we're doing what the client wants.

Public relations consultant Peter O'Malley seems to believe that the Canadian Public Relations Society's Code of Professional Standards' reference to honesty and integrity may be inspiring , but ˜ignores what public relations is all about. [ 4]

O'Malley justifies this claim with an analogy between lawyers and PR practitioners. It is a truism in civilized cultures that everyone has the right to legal representation. Perhaps it is even true that everyone has a right to have public relations counsel to have his or her voice heard in the arena of public communication, facilitating access. But the analogy breaks down when it comes to the lawyer representing clients whom he or she knows to be guilty. What the lawyer is then supporting is a belief in the legal system and everyone's right to due process. No such infrastructure exists for public relations. Thus, we have to assume logically that public relations practitioners are not bound to do whatever their clients bid them to do, and in fact are behaving unethically if they lie on their clients' behalf , even if it is at their behest. O'Malley's contention is that if you want to be an ethical public relations practitioner you ˜choose to serve clients whose self-defined interests are, in [your] view, correct. And [you] don't serve those whose purposes and interests are incorrect. Period. I can't argue with him here. However, all this simplistic view of ethics does, however, is reinforce the public image of PR as a less than ethical practice and it fails to move us forward into a future where public relations' role truly is to develop mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics whose foundation is trust ”the only true foundation for mutual benefit.

American philosophy professor Mitchell Green of the University of Virginia takes a broader view of the ethics of truth telling when he says, ˜truth telling is not a matter of speaking the truth but is rather a matter of speaking what one believes to be the truth and further, ˜one can mislead without lying. [ 5] The issue of misleading is an especially important one in public relations. If failing to disclose information, regardless of the motivation, leads the public to a wrong conclusion and this was a predictable situation, then it is as ethically questionable as telling an outright lie.

[ 1] Institute of Public Relations Code of Conduct [accessed 5 August 2003]. http://www.ipr.org.uk/direct/membership.asp?v1=code

[ 2] Canadian Public Relations Society Code of Professional Standards [accessed 5 August 2003]. http://www.cprs.ca/AboutCPRS/e_code.htm

[ 3] Martinson, David L [accessed 19 May 1998] Educators define telling the ˜truth in PR, published by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication No. 33, November 1993. http://www.usc.edu/ schools /annenberg/asc/projects/prd/33martin.html

[ 4] O'Malley, Peter [accessed 5 August 2000] In praise of secrecy . http://www.omalco.com/cprs.htm

[ 5] Green, Mitchell [accessed 5 August 2003] Truthtelling. 5 August 2003 http://www.people.virginia.edu/~msg6m/TRUTHTEL.pdf




Ethics in Public Relations. A Guide to Best Practice
Ethics in Public Relations: A Guide to Best Practice (PR in Practice)
ISBN: 074945332X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 165

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