Should PR Adopt More Stringent Ethics that Acknowledge Responsibility to the Public?

Public relations is filling the gap created by disappearing journalists. Traditional media outlets have sustained massive staff reductions in recent years. The number of reporters decreased 17 percent from 52,550 in 2003 to 43,630 in 2013, according to Pew Research. PR has moved to fill the void. While journalists were being laid off, the number of PR professionals increased 22 percent from 166,210 to 202,530.

With tighter budgets and smaller staffs, media outlets are more willing to accept contributed articles from PR. News websites routinely publish native advertising that pushes the boundaries between editorial and advertising. In addition, PR can send its message directly to the public through owned media such as corporate websites, blogs, and social media.

That increased power brings greater responsibilities for PR practitioners.

An Awesome Responsibility

“When we all but control the news—especially in a democratic society—we hold an awesome responsibility,” writes Shel Holtz, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology.

“As PR becomes an increasingly potent force for shaping the news people see, practitioners will need to be at least as accountable to the public as they are to their clients,” Holtz contends.

Of course, skeptics argue that the PR industry as a whole won’t start working for the good of society, he says. PR is not regulated in most countries; individual PR practitioners and agencies don’t need licenses. It’s unrealistic to expect PR to be free of unethical practitioners when even highly regulated professions suffer from their share of bad players.

“We can’t worry about everybody,” Holtz argues. “We can only take direct action for ourselves. Counseling our clients to embrace true CSR [corporate social responsibility] values is important, but it’s not enough. We need to model that behavior. We need to walk the talk.”

Stringent ethics and transparent reporting build trust, the lifeblood of a corporation. That’s today’s PR walk. “The idea that we can collectively turn news writ large into a propaganda machine should stop us dead in our tracks,” Holtz states. “Of course we are accountable to our clients. It’s why they pay us. At the same time, however, we should adopt an overt responsibility to the public… We need to ensure our efforts add value to news but do not corrupt it.

“If PR is going to dominate the news, the industry must embrace the ethics and standards of journalism to supplement the codes that govern the organizations that represent the industry,” Holtz contends. I agree.

A Shift in Corporate Views

PR will not stand alone in the move toward embracing more stringent ethics and a broadening view of corporate social responsibility.

Corporate leaders now believe they have social and ethical responsibilities. A survey of 853 global senior corporate executives by the Economist Intelligence Unit late last year showed that 83 percent of businesses believe – and 74 percent of them strongly believe – that human rights are a matter for business as well as governments. Plus, 71 percent say their responsibility to respect human rights goes beyond just obeying laws.

That’s a huge shift from the past. As recently as the 1990s, few corporate leaders accepted that their companies had human rights responsibilities.

Moral considerations were just one reason for their views. Corporate leaders believe that respecting human rights can help maintain favorable relationships with local communities, protect the company’s brand and reputation, and meet employee expectations.

Despite the beliefs of senior managers, companies are still grappling with how to put support for human rights into practice and communicate their policies throughout the organization. As Jan Klawitter, government-relations manager of Anglo American said, “Big corporations need time to change; processes take time to change. … It is just a reality.”

The public is also coming to expect more from corporations. The 2014 Deloitte Millennial Survey reports that 68 percent of Millennials believe “business can do much more to address society’s challenges. Plus, half said they want to work for a business with ethical practices.

PR Agencies and Ethical Codes

How seriously do PR firms take ethical considerations?

When the Climate Investigations Center researched the role of PR agencies in climate policies, fewer than half of the 25 major agencies contacted said they would not accept campaign assignments from clients that deny man-made climate change or hinder regulations to limit carbon pollution.

Such campaigns breach the codes of conduct of business associations such as the International Public Relations Association or, in the UK, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

“The obligation most of the national codes place on accuracy has a precise meaning when it comes to representation about settled scientific facts,” Bill Royce, senior vice-president for cleantech, energy and sustainability at Weber Shandwick, told PR Week.

Should PR Update Its Industry Guidelines?

PRSA’s ethical guidelines, covering for honesty, accuracy, integrity and confidentiality, are probably the industry’s most widely recognized ethics code. The Professional Standards Advisories (PSAs), designed to keep the PRSA code timely, address PR-specific areas and modern practices, including recording conversations, use of interns, video news releases, pay-for-play journalism and disclosure guidelines.

As PR pros increasingly act as journalists, the PRSA may wish to adopt some principles from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. They include:

Give both sides the opportunity to respond to allegations. Support the open exchange of views, even views found “repugnant.”

Make certain that headlines and content do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or take incidents out of context.

Avoid misleading re-enactments or staged news events. If a re-enactment is necessary, label it.

Never distort the content of news photos or videos.

Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.

Give voice to the voiceless; official and unofficial sources of information can be equally valid.

Bottom Line: The demise of professional journalism and the corresponding rise of corporate PR has empowered PR professionals. Those greater powers mean PR pros must take into account the public welfare now more than ever and do its part to disseminate accurate, fully vetted, information to their audiences.

William Comcowich

William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.