TRUTH TELLING AS A PRINCIPLE OF BEHAVIOUR

Truth telling is such a fundamental ethical issue that it constitutes a basic principle of behaviour. As an ethical principle, truth telling is one of those fundamental assumptions about behaving ethically and is only one of several such fundamental principles. The other important ones for public relations practice are non-maleficence, beneficence, confidentiality and fairness.

PR pillars

Veracity (to tell the truth)

Non-maleficence (to do no harm)

Beneficence (to do good)

Confidentiality (to respect privacy)

Fairness (to be fair and socially responsible)

I think of these as the pillars that carry the weight of ethical decision-making in public relations.

The concept of doing no harm as fundamental to moral behaviour has already surfaced in our discussion. The concept of doing no harm has deep roots in the notion of respect for others. As a pillar of ethics in the field of public relations, it provides us with a one-question analysis of any decision we choose to make before we make it. Will my actions harm others? Obviously, this isn't the final analysis, but it is often a place to start.

Your honesty assessment

Consider the following activities. If you are currently not a student, think back about the years when you were. If you are currently a student, you shouldn't have any trouble remembering if these are activities in which you engage.

If you have done any of the following even once , place a check mark in the box:

• taken crib notes into an exam (that wasn't open -book) even if you didn't use them;

• used your crib notes during an exam;

• used material from a source without acknowledging it (quotes or not);

• lied to an instructor about your reason for missing a deadline;

• bought a paper (either from the Internet or not) and submitted it largely unchanged;

• used material gleaned from (inadvertently) glancing at someone else's exam.

If you are currently working and not a student, continue with the following placing a check mark in the box beside any activity in which you have ever engaged even once . If you are a student, you might consider which of them you are likely to do based on your behaviour as a student:

• taken credit for an accomplishment that was not truly yours;

• made a statement in written material (such as a news release or client pitch) that was not strictly honest;

• taken office supplies home and used them for other than work- related activities;

• lied to a supervisor about your reason for missing a deadline;

• used information gleaned from (inadvertently) glancing at a colleague's computer screen;

• failed to acknowledge the source of information.

Now that you have two groups of check marks, compare the two lists.

Figure 2.1: Your honesty assessment

The concept of doing good speaks' of a kind of altruistic ethical intent. Looking for opportunities to do good can be helpful in making decisions about the relative morality of public relations activities. For example, if faced with two or more relatively ˜good alternatives to reach a conclusion in a situation, you might consider which of them is likely to do the most good. In addition, applying this principle to everyday public relations practice, we might reasonably conclude that ethical PR seeks out opportunities to do good. For example, when developing a community relations programme, seeking to sponsor the charitable event that could actually do the most good for the public rather than the one that does little material good but improves your image would be construed to be the most ethical approach. Finding a balance between the two is the challenge for the creative PR practitioner.

The third pillar, respecting the privacy of others, is clearly germane to ethical decision-making in any public communication function. Unfortunately, it's rarely a simple matter of considering an individual's right to privacy when dealing with media whose members frequently believe that their belief in the public's right to know about something takes precedence over what you might define as the individual right to privacy. Ethical decision-making is nothing if not a balancing act, as we shall see.

The final pillar upon which public relations ethics is based in my view is the concept of fairness. Trying to respect all people involved in any situation equally is an attempt at fairness. At times, it seems that our role as organizational advocates flies in the face of the requirement to be fair, but as we'll see in Chapter 13, that does not have to be the case.

These fundamental pillars provide us with a first pass at analysing a situation to determine its ethical implications before moving on to the more difficult part of ethics: actually taking action that we can live with. We'll get to that process in more detail in Chapter 15. But before we do that, we need to continue to develop our underlying framework and take a hard look at personal issues of ethics in professional practice.

Perhaps it would be useful to consider Mark Twain's simple philosophy about truth telling: ˜If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.