The end…or is it? Sunday, Nov 28 2010

I believe that as humans we are programmed to lie, even if it is the smallest of lies, I am sure that everyone has lied and many of those times, it’s probably to protect someone from the truth which may hurt them. In relationships people may lie about certain things in order to protect their partner or to reframe from hurting them but is this necessarily a bad thing? Obviously it depends on the situation and what the truth is but surely that is the same for PR practitioners?

 

James Horton states that “we know from numerous psychological studies, from personal observation and from our own behaviour that lying is endemic. People lie. Telling CEOs to speak the truth no matter what flies in the face of human nature. We call for transparency when in our hearts we know there is no such thing”

 

I believe that PR as an industry having a duty to tell the truth relies on each practitioner. For it is their personal opinion and values which consequently decides whether they are going to tell the truth or lie.

 

Of course there are ethical codes that every Public Relations organisation and their members are expected to abide by, established by the CIPR, however these are often viewed as guidelines to how professionals should conduct themselves within the industry although to what extent these are followed depends on each independent professional. Despite these codes of conduct, there is always going to be companies and individuals that go against these and therefore achieving a transparent industry in highly unlikely.

 

I do think that PR as an industry should tell the truth to the public as lies are generally always exposed and would require more explaining when this happens. Also it is the public’s right to know what is happening within a company in order to make informed decisions and opinions.

 

However, I do also think there may be some circumstances where withholding the truth or possibly lying is more beneficial but this does depend on what information is being withheld. I believe that this is a complex debate with so many different views, thoughts and opinions and as I said before, I highly doubt any outcome with come from this debate for many years, if ever.

 

At the end of the day, Public Relations professionals do need to be careful if they do lie on behalf of their clients because, as Galileo once said “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them” and there will always be people out there seeking the ultimate truth so ensure lying is the right choice to make.

 

3 Responses »

 

Are there certain circumstances for lying? Saturday, Nov 27 2010

“Sometimes, you just have to stand up there and lie. Make the audience or the reporter believe that everything is ok. How many times have you heard a CEO stand up and say “No, I’m not leaving the company” and then – days later – he’s gone. Reporters understand that you “had” to do it and they won’t hold it against you in your next job when you deal with them again.” This statement given on Gawker website helps to identify that sometimes there are instances in which lying or withholding the truth is necessary in order to save damage to the reputation of the company or individual.

PR practitioners may strive to tell the truth, advising clients against a certain move if it may cause damage in the future or even advising their clients to tell the truth and provide facts, however when it comes to incidents involving clients in their personal life, such as adultery, drunken episodes or drugs, practitioner strive to hide this information if it will not influence the performance of the company.

Max Clifford stated that sometimes the “price of telling that truth would be terribly destructive to lots of people.”  One time Clifford stopped newspapers exposing a footballer for being gay, because it would have ruined his career, an example where lying or withholding the truth was highly beneficial for the client because although sexuality has nothing to do with football, if you are a good footballer you are a good footballer, this is not the case in society and therefore by keeping this story from the public, it saved his client’s career. This in itself is a topic I struggle to grasp, that personal lives and choices can destroy a career but this will have to be saved for another blog another time!

Although there are circumstances in which it would be better to lie, it is dependent on the client and what they would be lying about.

In the Tylenol case study, by admitting that their products had been tampered with and organising a mass recall of all products , the company won praise for its quick and appropriate action. Despite the fact they had no control over what happened, by reacting quickly and admitting what had happened, they were able to maintain customer loyalty and trust.

In comparison, other companies may have tried to cover up the incident or taken longer to react which would have damaged the trust of the customers. This is an example where being honest with the public worked effectively and within five months, the company had recovered 70% of its market share for the drug – and the fact this went on to improve over time showed that the company had succeeded in preserving the long term value of the brand.

This can also be seen in Perrier’s incident when benzene traces were found in 13 of their bottles. Instead of just leaving it as it was a small amount in comparison to their sales, they recalled millions of bottles and launched a PR campaign to help minimize the damage. This succeeded and customers were grateful for their honestly and ‘safety comes first’ approach. Although it did damage their sales for longer than Tylenol, taking 5 years to return to original sales, they were respected and trusted by the customers.

An example of PR going wrong by withholding the truth is BP and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Although originally stating they will fix the problem, they then continued on to question why they were getting all the blame, and trying to minimize the amount of damage that was done, “I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest.”

 

By understating the impact and extent of the disaster it meant it appeared that they were trying to hide the extent to the public. By doing this and seeming to have lied, the public were angrier with them for not fully accepting responsibility.

 

They tried to down play the disaster, with CEO Tony Hayward stating “the Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

 

This almost appears to the public that what happened is bad but not a disaster and therefore causing uproar and loss in trust. If BP had taken full responsibility for the disaster and showed the public they were doing everything they could to minimise damage and stop the leak then the outcome may have been different. My final post will be concluding this debate with my views and opinions.

 

3 Responses »

 

PR practitioners and Journalists Saturday, Nov 20 2010

Firstly, as a student studying Public Relations as part of my degree we cover the ethical issues within the industry. Studying this began me thinking about whether every industry is ethical, are journalists completely truthful? Or do they twist stories in order to sell more newspapers or magazines?

I think that it is possible for the ethics of the journalists to impact on a PR practitioner’s ethical conduct. After all, as a practitioner, if you are put in the position where you have given a journalist a story and it arises that the journalist may twist the story and therefore to rectify this a lie is created, is that necessarily completely the practitioners fault or is the journalist partly to blame?

Every situation is different and therefore it is hard to understand and know what to do until in that situation personally.

However, the relationship between the journalist and practitioner should be that of a professional one with mutual respect and therefore working together should entail the journalist adhering to the news that the practitioner supplies them with.  Janet Hatherley states that “One of the most indicative parts of this relationship is the PR embargo, a tool used by PR professionals to tip business journalists off about major news ahead of time, while still controlling the timeframe that the news is released”.

Janet speaks of this relationship turning sour and the difference in objectives that journalists and practitioners have.

This once again returns to the point that journalist seek the truth for the public and PR acts in such a way which is beneficial for their clients and therefore this can cause tension and misleading information being printed.  Although it is true, PR gets such a negative image with regards to ethical conduct when there are many other industries that are exactly the same, journalist’s are not completely ethical, they twist words, sometimes print blatant lies and know what story they are going to write before they have even researched it.

So why is it that PR gets such a negative image when other professionals do the same if not worse and have their image intact? Also how do we know that the practitioners are lying, they may simply say ‘no comment’ in response to a question, although arguably they could say a lot, and the journalist then twists this to make the practitioner look bad but all they are doing a withholding the truth for time or possibly actually have no comment.

Sometimes it is hard to differentiate between the lies and deception of a practitioner and the manipulative work of a journalist. Although practitioners may be lying, are there certain instances where this is best?

5 Responses »

 

Duty of a practitioner Tuesday, Nov 16 2010

A PR practitioners’ loyalty should ultimately be with their client as they are the people that are hired and are generally calling the shots, therefore if the client wishes a certain piece of information that may not be completely truthful to be released it is the job of the practitioner to do this. As with journalists’ loyalty is towards the paper and revealing the truth, the loyalty of the practitioners lie with the company/person they are representing, consequently this may mean they are not able to give reporters certain information or in some circumstances they may have to lie.

 Due to this loyalty being towards their clients it causes people to believe their work is unethical and manipulative.

However it also depends on whether the practitioner is comfortable lying and their own values and whether they wish to compromise these, an example of this is Mike McCurry who served as White House press secretary when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. Instead of lying to the public and helping to maintain control over the scandal he remained out of it and therefore kept his reputation undamaged. This is an example where the loyalty towards the client/employer would have hurt the reputation of McCurry. However this shows that McCurry did not want to compromise his personal values and ethics and consequently proved the right move to make.

Although whether or not this is true for every practitioner and every situation is hard to determine. Some people believe that “PR practitioners do not necessarily have a duty to tell the truth, but do have a duty to serve the interests of their clients. Which rather presumes that the two are mutually exclusive.” A response to Martin Moores blog. 

 This is also shown in Budding Heads PR which also claims “it is our job to build and protect a company’s image” and therefore if this is right, this means that the practitioner should lie or breach ethics. As previously mentioned, the loyalty of the practitioner should lie with their client as they are ultimately the ones paying you, which is for a service not whether you agree or disagree with them. This is quite a worrying view on this topic in my opinion as although it may be correct, should you compromise your personal values and ethics for a paycheck?

Although on the other hand, before entering the industry as a practitioner some research must have been done and therefore you would know what the industry and job entails and by going to the interview and getting the job, you already know that there is going to be a possibility of lying and deceiving conduct.  It is definitely hard debate to get a full grasp on with all the different views – so much so that my mind is full of contradicting thoughts!

It is said to be the journalist’s job to uncover the truth and their duty is to tell the public, so therefore is it more likely the duty of the practitioner to protect their client? After all it’s the journalists that are looking for the truth not the practitioner.

Anne Gregory writes in “Where the truth lies” that journalists seek out and speaks the truth (supposedly) in the public interest although there are underlying issues, editorial bias, pressure, personal prejudice and many more, but they claim their duty ultimately lies with the public interest.

Where the ethics of journalists and PR practitioners may be very similar, for practitioners, it isn’t as simple as that. They work for organisations and are employed to defend and promote those organisations. PR practitioners are paid to tell the ongoing organisational story, whether it’s the truth or not. Does the relationship between journalists and practitioner hinder the truth telling?

7 Responses »

 

Does telling the truth depend on a practitioner’s values and personal ethics? Thursday, Nov 4 2010

Public Relations has always had a negative image in regards to the public, so isn’t it ironic that an industry that handles the reputations of companies and people does not have a good reputation itself?

Davis Young, Fellow, PRSA, president and CEO of Edward Howard & Co, Cleveland states in an article by Susan Fry Bovet. that “much of its negative visibility relates to perceptions about our ethical standards”.

Many people view PR as lying and manipulative, some see PR professionals as manipulators of the public mind, rather than conveyors of truth, making people believe what they want them to believe. But is this the case, as surely the ‘public’ have a mind of their own and can believe what they want, not what we tell them to believe.

It’s hard to distinguish sometimes whether or not practitioners are lying or whether they are simply telling the truth at a slow rate, letting a little piece of information out each time over a period of time. I believe that this is the case sometimes but how are we to know whether this is happening or they are just simply holding back information that the public deserve to know?

 Does telling the truth depend on  a practitioner’s values and personal ethics?

Although PR is renowned for being an industry that lies and manipulates, you can argue the fact that it depends on each individual practitioner as to whether they chose to work ethically or not.

When working for a client that is unethical, it can be a hard situation to be in as your loyalty is meant to lie with them but it also depends whether they want to compromise their values and sometimes they may not think they have a choice.

Although, the practitioner does have a choice,  they can argue against the lies, go along with them as that is what they are paid for, or they can quit.

Obviously there are drawbacks to each option. Arguing can possibly shorten a career, going along with it can jeopardise the practitioner if the lie is exposed (as it would be clear they lied, considering they are the communicator) and quitting maintains the practitioner’s dignity and values but consequently they lose out by not being paid.

I think that it all boils down to money. When it comes to the decision between being paid and lying and not being paid, many people will choose being paid – although again I think it all depends on the practitioner’s values and personal ethics but ultimately their loyalty should lie with their clients.

In my next post I will be discussing the duty of a PR professional and where their loyalty should lie – with their client or with society?

9 Responses »

 

Is PR ethical and truthful? Wednesday, Nov 3 2010

Public Relations is one of those industry’s where you either know what it’s about and what’s behind it or you know completely nothing. When you know nothing about something it’s hard to understand how it works and whether it’s truthful and ethical. This is a question that many people cannot decide on the answer to in reference to PR. A major issue with PR is whether or not the practitioners are ethical causing another debate. There is a major split in this debate, with such professionals as Max Clifford claiming he had been “telling lies on behalf of my clients for 40 years” whereas there are others that claim that they have stopped working for a client when asked to work unethically. I imagine the debate will continue with no real outcome for years. Although I have been thinking, are there circumstances where it is right as a PR practitioner to lie on behalf of your client? Are there certain times when the truth will severely damage your client’s reputation or be invading their privacy too much? Although there is no clear answer to this question, it is hard to not become enthralled by the difference in opinions and views on the matter. For the next few weeks I will be exploring a few of the different areas of this question which I find particularly intriguing.

3 Responses »

 

Hello world! Wednesday, Nov 3 2010

I would just like to say hi to everyone on the Internet! I have decided to start blogging about a variety of things starting of with Does PR have a duty to tell the truth? Keep an eye on here for many different views and ideas not only on this topic but for many more!

3 Responses »