TRANSPARENCY VERSUS OBFUSCATION
PR Watch (PRW) has what they call a rogue's gallery of front groups. First, there's ActivistCash.com which, according to its Web site, ˜ root[s] out the funding sources of the most notorious anticonsumer groups . [ 9] PRW contends that it is actually run by a Washington lobbyist, and while claiming to expose the hidden funding behind these environmental and health activist groups, refuses to disclose its own resources. According to PRW, ActivistCash is funded by the tobacco , alcohol and restaurant industries.
Then there's the recently deactivated Global Climate Coalition, which evidently has successfully completed its job of ˜contributing to a new national approach to global warming. [ 10] According to PRW, it was sponsored by the auto, oil, coal and other such industries with a mandate to lead you to believe that global warming isn't really a problem at all.
These kinds of front groups have a clear ethical dilemma in the area of disclosure. Is it ethical to lobby for a particular point of view or persuade people to think and act differently without allowing your target public to have basic information on the lobby group ”who you are and where your money comes from? If this lack of transparency in any way misleads the audience, the answer has to be no. But where do we draw the line?
Surely, there are some groups such as those dedicated to health- related issues that are ethical public relations tools for their financial backers. Frequently, though, their sponsors are all pharmaceutical and healthcare companies that stand to benefit from exposure of their name and logo to potential consumers. Does this make them unethical if they are clear about their sources of income? Perhaps less so than those that are not, but they are dipping at least a toe into the waters of ethical quandaries.
If we use the test of disclosure, then the answer is no ”this is clearly an ethical public relations approach to enhancing the image of the drug companies. However, not all such organizations clearly indicate to their publics ” especially those targeted to lay audiences ”that they are, in fact, front groups for drug companies. They purport to be in the business of patient education. This could hardly be considered an impartial source of treatment information for a vulnerable public such as patients . This kind of organization falls into that twilight zone of ethical murkiness.
The bottom line is that there is considerable opportunity for public relations professionals to be more innovative in their approaches to solving PR problems or capitalizing on PR opportunities. But in the heat of the creative process, we cannot afford to lose sight of the potential ethical quagmires into which we may be falling.
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 165