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?
Does PR have a duty to tell the truth? 
I don’t see any reason to see PR as any more unethical than many other sectors. Recently the rise of political spin has dragged it down in my view and that has certainly not helped. Of all sectors politicians must be seen as the least truthful so being associated with them has to be harmful. Seeing a politician on TV arguing that black is white because that is the party line is embarrassing. Programmes like “In the Thick of It” are both funny and, sadly, regarded as close to the truth.
Journalists are a mixed bag. There are some who are serious commentators who call it as they see it. If their reputation is high enough I assume they can fight off editors pushing for sensational headlines. However the bulk are there to sell newspapers which is done best by unbalanced reporting and extreme headlines. I recall a specific example when a paper headline read “Barclays predicts 20% drop in house prices”. Now that is a worrying headline, especially at a time way before the recession. So readers skimming the paper would get the impression Barclays had serious concerns over the housing market. If you read the article you found that Barclays were predicting that prices would not rise and could drop by between 0% and a worst case 20%. A far cry from a firm prediction of a 20% drop. Combining the headline and article was it untruthful?
Many other professionals have seen their standing fall. The legal profession for example. I doubt many people see them as other than fee-generators acting in their own best interest. Profit is all.
The drive for profit is why some much regulation is in place in a bid to force service suppliers not to abuse their positions. Regrettably the “professionals” tend to be the best operators and can generally run rings round the regulators, while of course denying that they are doing so. Is the PR sector regulated? Would that help?
I think my comments on your previous post may also be relevant to this one as well. But I won’t keep rattling the same tin drum.
Intrigued by your question, Jen (“Although practitioners may be lying, are there certain instances where this is best?”); I’ve had a think about this. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
If we assume a natural disaster is about to happen (in a weeks time, an hour, a day; it’s irrelevant), and this disaster would destroy all life on this planet as we know it. It’s pretty safe to say- most people would want to know about this.
But, if we were to consider the responsibility associated with bringing such terrible news to the entirety of man kind; it’s very clear from the outset that it would be incredibly difficult to manage public reaction to such news.
Panic would most definitely ensue. With looting, rioting .etc
It’s something that would make everyone’s last moments on Earth quite terrible.
So maybe it would be better to lie, or to omit the truth entirely. If no one knows, everyone carries on as normal, and we all live out our last moments in a relatively peaceful manor.
However, if we then consider that maybe no one would like to be at work, at school or anywhere else but with their loved ones during an apocalypse (you only see one once, right?); we would then see that it’s maybe better to tell the truth?
But re-considering the first thought; surely this would make everyone’s lives a living hell?
With your family; and your last thought being “I hope they don’t steal the TV”?
It’s a difficult thing to comprehend and even more difficult to manage. But it makes good food for thought.
What do you think?
I think Argusfreak has a compelling argument, many industries can be considered untruthful and only motivated by profit instead of the truth/values/beliefs. I just wonder why it is that PR gets the ‘brunt’ of it. As you say, the headlines are there in order to sell newspapers and therefore are the truth is twisted. Journalists know what sells and therefore are trying to achieve this, especially with the rise of social networks where news travels incredibly quickly and the use of social media, everyone using the internet to find information, leading to newspapers becoming obsolete in the future. This increase may be causing journalists to write more untruthfully with more shocking headlines in order to sell newspapers.
I read a response to Martin Moores blog (http://bit.ly/bhoyO2) that: “How often is the truth newsworthy? Take the headline today ‘fiasco after fiasco at the Home Office’. That is not untrue. But it is also true that each day the department fulfils a large number of its functions effectively and without controversy. But ‘Home Office continues to fulfil 75% of functions effectively’ is not news. Nor should it be.”
Therefore, journalists must look at all the information and decide that shocking news is more important and if necessary twist it.
Regulations are important as are laws but these are still broken, PR is regulated but to what extent I do not know and as to whether this would help again I do not know but maybe it is possible.
As to Alex’s post, the scenario you suggest, although possibly far fetched does have a ring of truth to it. There may be certain circumstances where is it right to withhold the truth but these circumstances are hard to determine. My next blog is about these circumstances so make sure to have a read.
The relationship between Journalist and PR is largely a symbiotic one. The controlling of information flow to Journalists (not investigative journalist’s who would appear to do their own research to justify the story angle) is important to both the Practitioner and their client and probably the journalist.
Lets look at the recent BP oil well blowout where it is recognised that BP`s PR performance left them largely holding the can in the world’s eyes. Yet relatively little was seen in the press that also identified and tarnished the reputations the other companies involved, although the subsequent official investigation and report allocated similar levels of responsibility for the accident.
One can only conclude that the other companies had superior PR at their disposal who where able to ensure that the focus and story lines getting to the Journalist’s was always on BP rather than their clients.
So in this case the Journalist’s were getting what they appear to crave most, a big headline story that has legs with a household name company that was a target that could be pilloried at leisure and the prospect of increased sales. The PR companies get suitable recompense from extremely grateful client’s and professional enhancement to their own and their companies CV`s.
Everyone’s a winner, well almost.
The flow of information is important however, many journalists do tend to lead practitioners or spokesman down a certain trail with leading questions and consequently being told information that the client did not want the public to know.
Journalist’s are only looking for stories to sell the newspapers, sure but surely their opinions and prejudice can cause an article to become bias. Therefore, can PR practitioners really trust journalists? I suppose this does depend on the relationship the practitioner has built with them, after all that is part of their job.
The BP incident is one that I have covered in the next post, showing how they did not respond well and downplayed the whole incident, affecting the public’s opinion of them.