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?
Does PR have a duty to tell the truth? 
After reading your last entry, I was compelled to read a little more. You make some good arguments!
“Does the relationship between journalists and practitioner hinder the truth telling?”
I would say that the relationship between the media and PR in this case is irrelevant.
The real hindrance on the truth telling would ultimately lie with the practitioner’s client; as they are the one’s who know what they want to be made public vs. information they do not.
The only things that would vary the level of hindrance are:
The practitioner advises their client to tell the whole truth or tell less of the truth, in order to maintain public favouritism and minimise scepticism.
The practitioner lets their own moral judgements interfere with their professional decisions; thus influencing the level of hindrance.
The practitioner lets their own professional motivations (money, their own PR .etc) influence their advice to the client- again influencing the level of truth telling.
As for the role of the journalist. They are doing their job- which, as you said, is to find the truth.
However, this assumes that the journalist has no personal or professional motivations to distort the facts and data they have collected, by quoting out of context or omitting the whole truth.
In a worst case scenario- a horrific game of Chinese whispers can ensue; causing panic and prejudice to be upheld against the person or organisation in question.
So- How does PR affect the news we read today, and how often do news suppliers, such as the BBC, need the help of it’s own practitioners?
What is the difference in role of a PR agent and a barrister? Both are paid to put forward a case for their client. Both are professional and have duties toward their client and society.
May I suggest that barristers do not lie.
So why should a PR spokesman?
Very good point.
But whether they should, and whether they do are two different things….
I do agree with you Alex, to a degree, but how are we sure that as journalists they do not have vendettas against certain companies or use their own values and beliefs to affect their article? To a degree journalists are dependent on practitioners to deliver information to them, to this they may be resentful. The journalists may be bias on a political scale, which could affect their gathered information, they have certain ways of leading practitioners or any spokesperson down routes that they way, causing information that may not be true or information they did not want to be revealed to in fact be revealed.
Thinking about this, how do we know that journalists are honest as well? Hence why people say, ‘don’t believe everything the newspapers say’ as people know that they can be misleading as well, so how is it that PR has such a bad reputation and the journalists don’t?
Read my next blog on journalists and practitioners and see what you think.
I’ll have a read 🙂
I did say “However, this assumes that the journalist has no personal or professional motivations to distort the facts and data they have collected, by quoting out of context or omitting the whole truth.”
So I think we’re all reading off the same page in one respect or another.
The motivations for the distortions in truth could be as I have mentioned, and in addition- your own reasons also make a strong case:
“To a degree journalists are dependent on practitioners to deliver information to them, to this they may be resentful.”
” The journalists may be bias on a political scale, which could affect their gathered information, they have certain ways of leading practitioners or any spokesperson down routes that they way, causing information that may not be true or information they did not want to be revealed to in fact be revealed”
I think that both theories are possible, and in fact, compliment each other very well.
As for this comment: “so how is it that PR has such a bad reputation and the journalists don’t?”
This is simply untrue (in my opinion), journalists probably have a reputation just as bad if not worse than practitioners. Like you said:
“Thinking about this, how do we know that journalists are honest as well? Hence why people say, ‘don’t believe everything the newspapers say’ as people know that they can be misleading as well…”
Alex
It is not necessarily an untrue comment, they do not get as much bad publicity as Practitioners and if they do say or publish something incorrect then retract it, people’forgive’ them.
They may have a reputation for misleading and being untrustworthy, but at the end of the day, it isn’t necessarily as bad a reputation as PR. Or at least it isn’t vocalised as much. This is just my opinion.
It depends on each persons opinion, no one opinion is correct.
The Practitioner will always have a duty and or obligation to their client in the same way any other professional has and as such is bound to provide the best service that the client’s money has bought. Loyalty is a different concept that is largely an emotional state normally linked to a personal attachment of some kind.
I would suggest that it is when the line between Duty and Loyalty is crossed that actions are taken that will ultimately lead to the Practitioner behaving in a manner that will bring into question both the practitioners modus operandi and ethic’s.
When only Duty is involved in a PR campaign the practitioner can maintain a clear perspective on what needs to be done and the way in which it is delivered to achieve a successful conclusion to the campaign and is more likely to remain within the regulatory guidelines and standards of the profession.
However when a practitioner is driven by other motives such as loyalty to a personal contact that is not just a business one then the psychology of not wanting to let a friend down comes into play and therefore the likelihood of the practitioner turning to more dubious and questionable actions when the campaign appears to be going poorly is greatly increased. This suspect activity if exposed during the campaign will increase the chances of failure and retribution being visited on the offending practitioner by the industry, employers and client because after all, dubious activities can subsequently be interpreted as poor advice and being perceived as have given poor advice is the ultimate sin of any professional.