Ethics in Public Relations

In an ever-evolving industry like public relations, good ethics is the communications foundational building block that never changes. Why? One of the main functions of public relations is to build trust and credibility for a particular brand, organization or company. And ethics are paramount to earning trust.

Ethics are the standards of integrity that support a person’s moral choices in certain situations.

PR ethics month

Each year, PR professional organizations use the month of September to underscore ethics and remind PR pros of their pledges to act ethically.

As I’ve written previously, nearly every professional public relations and communications organization has ethical guidelines or codes of conduct — PRSA, PRCA, Institute for PR, Page Society, ICCO — similar to the journalism code of ethics and most other industry associations. Some organizations even hold the power to expel members who are found violating this code.

PRCA ethics: In the UK, PRCA successfully expelled Bell Pottinger five years ago for “stirring racial hatred in South Africa.” PRCA Director General Francis Ingham recently commented on the topic. “It was a defining moment for us. It proved that our code has teeth, that it is enforced and that it does have serious consequences if you breach it. More importantly, it was a defining moment for the PR industry. It began a conversation about ethics and an acknowledgment that ethical standards need to rise year on year all around the world.”

This year, the PRCA Global Ethics Council launched a global PR ethics survey in partnership with Ethics & Compliance Initiative (ECI). They aim to examine and understand the current state of ethics and compliance in PR and communications worldwide. The survey (found here) closes on September 30.

PRSA ethics: PRSA’s Code of Ethics serves to clearly identify “improper public relations practices” and educate members. However, as a volunteer organization, PRSA’s enforcement authority is limited and does not hold sanctioning power. Still, the PRSA Board of Directors “retains the right to bar from membership or expel from the Society any individual who has been or is sanctioned by a government agency or convicted in a court of law of an action that fails to comply with the Code.”

PRSA does a great job of educating its members through ongoing professional development webinars, events, and sections. PRSA’s Board of Ethics and Professional Standards (BEPS) has published 10 position papers and 17 ethical standards advisories. They also launched an Ethics Quiz (only available to members). All can be found online in the Ethics section of PRSA’s website.

Circling back to the Bell Pottinger case study,’ PR Week published an article by Tony Langham (Larsons co-founder) on whether a situation like this could happen again. Tony is convinced it won’t be the last firm to go out this way. He said this could be avoided simply by “not doing evil, having effective central controls, being financially strong and having united management with a moral compass.” Easier said than done.

*Disclosure: I am a member of both PRSA and PRCA.

PR ethics (professional values)

Most PR practitioners in the US look to PRSA’s code of ethics to guide our behaviors and our decision-making. The six core professional values in PR are:

1. Honesty: Providing accurate and truthful information — the foundation of earning public trust.
2. Advocacy: Providing views from different sides and/or people and all relevant facts so people can make informed decisions.
3. Independence: Taking responsibility for your own actions; providing objective counsel.
4. Expertise: Acquiring knowledge and using critical thinking to maintain credibility as an expert and earn a trusting relationship between those you represent and the public.
5. Loyalty: Respect and maintain loyalty to those you counsel and represent (but not at the expense of the public interest).
6. Fairness: Respecting and considering all views and opinions.

We often say words matter (and they do), and public communication can be powerful and influential, so those communicating need these ethical boundaries. Just as public relations can influence and build positive relationships and reputation, unethical communication can erode public trust and potentially create a crisis situation.

Unethical communication behaviors

According to Redding’s (1996) typology of unethical communications, there are six general categories of unethical communication:

1. Coercive: Behavior reflecting abuse of power. For example, intolerance or refusal to listen to others’ opinions, freedom of speech constraints, quashing dissenting discussions.
2. Destructive: Aggressive or misuse of information to make others feel inferior. This includes things like derogatory insinuations, epithets, distasteful jokes, character assassination.
3. Deceptive: Dishonest and misleading messages. For example, euphemisms intended to obscure defects or deeds, deliberate ambiguity, weaponizing truth, concealing or covering up displeasing facts.
4. Intrusive: Communication that invades or denies others’ rights to privacy. This includes listening to others’ phone messages, reading someone else’s files, employer surveillance of workers, and other forms of corporate intrusion. This could also include engaging in corporate espionage.
5. Secretive: Nonverbal communication. For example, intentional unresponsiveness, manipulating a message to skew how the reader interprets it, culpable silence (purposefully preventing information from being given).
6. Manipulative: Communicating without concern for the public interest or otherwise preventing the receiver from knowing the actual intentions behind a message. This includes demagoguery (exploiting people’s fears, ignorance or prejudices for gain) or using a patronizing or condescending tone.

In many ways, these unethical communicative behaviors overlap and can build on one another.

Greenwashing: Ethics lesson

The question of whether an ethical PR pro or agency can represent a company or entity that engages in unethical behavior has long been discussed. The general consensus is yes, as long as the practitioner or firm themselves employs ethical practices.

PR firms have been chastised for representing those in the tobacco and fossil fuels industries for years. With tobacco, it was about the health-related harm smoking does. Whereas today, for both sectors (and the fast-fashion industry), it’s about “greenwashing.” In case you aren’t familiar, greenwashing is “the act or practice of making a product, policy, activity, etc. appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it really is,” according to Merriam-Webster.

Just for the record, greenwashing is unethical. The practice, by definition, exhibits coercive, deceptive and manipulative tactics — all of which are included in Redding’s categories of unethical behavior.

You’ve probably run across some of the news and industry reports specific to “Big Oil” and PR (and advertising) firms lately. The Washington Post published a piece last year about how Big Oil relies on PR firms to help block climate action. The article was based on a peer-reviewed paper by Brown University researchers. The paper identifies the actions taken by major PR firms Burson Cohn & Wolfe and Ogilvy; however, it saved Edelman for its most scathing criticism. To his credit, CEO Richard Edelman spoke to Axios shortly afterward, saying he is proud of their work with “oil majors” as they transition toward renewable energy.

More recently (last week), the big news was the congressional hearing on “The Role of Public Relations Firms in Preventing Action on Climate Change.” Following the hearing, Reuters reported, “witness Christine Arena, a former Edelman PR executive who now works in social impact filmmaking, told the hearing that PR firm campaigns on behalf of oil companies no longer deny climate change.”

PR News, O’Dwyer’s, PR Week, and a slew of other PR/comms industry publications also reported on the hearing for obvious reasons.

I haven’t had time to read the entire 116-page report published by the House Natural Resources Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Yet, in perusing the first few pages, it seems damning. *Note the report itself is only 16 pages, but there is a lot of documentation — including an agency-submitted PR award application for an ExxonMobil campaign. You can watch the recorded hearing livestream on YouTube.

This is a great lesson accentuating the adage, “Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching.”

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Ethical voices

I’m sure there are others, but my favorite ethics lessons come from Mark McClennan’s EthicalVoices® blog and podcast. Each week he interviews communications professionals who share ethical challenges they’ve faced. Mark also publishes a “this week in PR ethics” column where he shares a series of other communications and PR ethics stories.

There’s one in particular that piqued my interest recently. It’s an article from Catholic Outlook on the Pope’s opinion on ethics and digital media. Pope Francis said, “Communication is not just a profession, but a service to dialogue and understanding between individuals and larger communities in the pursuit of a serene and peaceful coexistence.” Mark added, “All it is missing are the keywords mutually beneficial relationship between an organization and its publics….”

Conclusion

Ethics should be a matter of course for all communications. This includes, but is not limited to, press releases, media relations activities, social media, marketing communications, employee communications, emails, blogs — even the images you choose to accompany your communiqués.

Bottom line? Be truthful and respectful. Watch your tone. Be considerate and inclusive. Be fair and empathetic. And hold yourself accountable.

 

 

.*A version of this post by Tressa Robbins originally appeared on September 20, 2022 at https://burrelles.com/ethics-in-public-relations and is cross-posted here with permission. 

Ethics in PR Matters—Especially Now

Trust and ethics go hand-in-glove, and in today’s disrupted environment, they aren’t just important; they are crucial.

So what exactly is “ethics”? The Merriam-Webster dictionary states, ethics plural in form but singular or plural in construction: the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation. A set of moral principles: a theory or system of moral values. A guiding philosophy.

September is Ethics Month for two of the largest public relations member organizations — PRSA and PRCA. In full disclosure, I’m a member of both organizations.

Here in the U.S., you may be familiar with PRSA but not so much with PRCA as they are based in the U.K. The Public Relations and Communications Association is the world’s largest professional PR body with more than 35,000 PR professionals in 70 countries. All PRCA members are bound by a professional charter and codes of conduct. You can review the PRCA Professional Charter here, which includes a definition, rules of conduct, as well as arbitration and disciplinary procedures.

You can review the PRSA Code of Ethics here, which has recently been expanded to include guidance and examples of unethical situations. PRSA states, “Ethical practice is the most important obligation of a PRSA member.”

Nearly every professional PR and communications organization has a code of ethics — PRSA, PRCA, NSPRA, PR Council, IPRA, PRIA, Institute for PR, Global Alliance, ICCO, IABC, AMA, etc. Many other professional organizations also pledge to abide by a certain ethical standard. Even private companies, publicly-held corporations, non-profit organizations, and educational institutions have standards to which they hold their employees or members. Enforcing these values is essential.

Ethics and competence are the two distinct attributes to trust, according to the 2020 Trust Barometer Global Report. Of the two, ethics wins by far. The report showed that ethical drivers are a whopping three times more important to a company’s trust than competence.

The general public’s view of the PR industry, however, is not so rosy. The 2018 USC Annenberg Global Communications report on the Evolution of Ethics showed that in the U.S., 57% viewed PR as somewhat or very unethical—higher than the 44% internationally. On the plus side, 75% of students say ethics play a very or extremely important role in their choice of PR as a career.

Students and young professionals involved with PRSSA (the student affiliate of PRSA) believe ethics is the underlying principle upon which all great PR lessons are based, per a recent story in PR Daily.

Today, there is hyper-awareness of corporate, brand and organizational ethics — just spend a few minutes on Twitter to see!

Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer Report says, “trust has always been foundational in customer relationships, but it’s a more nuanced subject in an era where customers expect transparency, authenticity, and ethics.” Seventy-three percent of customers say trust in companies matters more than it did a year ago, and yet 54 percent say it’s harder than ever for companies to earn their trust. As a matter of fact, nearly 70 percent of both consumers and business buyers say they won’t buy from companies with poor ethics. That in itself should tell you why this is so critical now.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a spotlight on the value of PR as people look to companies and organizations to communicate the current reality ethically. Even when the truth is somber and difficult, you must present the facts with a strong front — while being honest and empathetic.

Good ethics can’t be simply willed into existence; it must be practiced —and enforced. If you are disingenuous, it will come out, and you’ll find yourself and your organization neck-deep in controversy and speculation, and be forced into a reputational crisis communication situation.

As Martin Waxman said in a story for Spin Sucks, “If we want to build trust with audiences, transparency, truthfulness, and ethics are all we have.”

And last week, PR Council president, Kim Sample, said in an interview with PRNEWS, “Your reputation and commitment to ethics are the most important things you will carry with you in this field.”

In a time when fake news, disinformation (purposeful intent to mislead), misinformation, propaganda, and deep fakes are an everyday concern, ethics are paramount to earning trust. And, as the data reflected, trust has never been more important than now.

 

.*A version of this post by Tressa Robbins originally appeared on September 29, 2020, on the Burrelles Fresh Ideas blog at https://burrelles.com/ethics-in-pr-matters-especially-now and is cross-posted here with permission.