The Ethical Foundations of Public Relations

(By Peter O’Malley, Director of the Ottawa PR-Society)

Ethical professional conduct for public relations practitioners has something to do with promoting “honesty, accuracy, integrity and truth” in public communications. While this notion might be truly inspiring, it nonetheless ignores what public relations actually are all about – namely, the advocacy and dissemination of the partisan viewpoints of those who engage our services. The real basis for defining how we serve the public good, and for our ethical professional behavior, is not found in any set of transcendent values, however inspiring they may be. Rather, our ethics are rooted in the terms of the contract we freely enter into with the clients we choose to serve. We agree to use our expertise to promote the interests of our client – within the parameters of the law, in exchange for which they compensate us, usually in the form of cashable chouse.

In some specific instances, a client's true interest may lie in complete openness, transparency and disclosure in their public communications, and even in tub-thumping to draw attention to their story and message. In such situations, we have every reason to be candid, open and forthcoming. We may even get to hire brass bands, barkers and clowns, balloons and airships to get the client's message out, thus fulfilling our abiding to be enlighteners of the public, perhaps with a mark-up.

In many instances, however, the client's interest lies in seeing that a particular fact, or set of facts, never see of day, and if they do, to minimize the impact, duration and even the clarity of any resulting and public communications. This is called crisis avoidance and damage control. As we all know, it constitutes a large part of what we do for a living. It is also what many clients most value in our work..

In crisis situations where a client’s real or perceived culpability in a matter is low, damage control can be, and usually should be, approached in manner that may happily promote "honesty, accuracy, integrity and truth”. In crisis situations where the client’s perceived or real culpability is high, however, damage control almost always means being highly in what is said publicly, and very careful about when and where anything at all is said.

In all instances, on both practical and legal grounds, effective public relations means not lying or defaming. But when perceived or real culpability is high, damage control inherently requires that engaged PR practitioners not volunteer facts they may know which are true and relevant — maybe even important to getting the "truth" of the matter — but the disclosure of which would be harmful to the clients interests. And it frequently requires being steadfast in characterizing a "nearly empty" bottle as being ”almost full". We may like to call all this "focused messaging", but in plain language, it means being selective in the presentation of information, and being secretive. It may also mean being disingenuously mule headed. All of those serve the client's interests, but none of it serves to enlighten the public.

If it is true that, as a profession, we are not, fundamentally and at all times, in the "honesty, accuracy, integrity and truth" business, does it then follow that there is no ethical foundation for what we do? Not at all. There are, I believe, a set of important, societal sanctioned propositions around which to anchor our professional conduct, once we move beyond the silly idea that we are really journalists, once removed from the new copy.

I offer the following four propositions which give public relations an ethical foundation.

1. We live. In a society which espouses and values "freedom of the press", which in practice means that the only people who can "control" what is reported are those who own media, and who assign and pay the reporters.

2. Reporters in our society operate according to a standard set of reporting protocols and formulae which, in general, shape and determine the reporting outcome — namely, the published news report.

3. Through study and experience, one can develop expert knowledge of these standard reporting formulae. Using this expert knowledge, it is possible to intervene in the reporting process in a manner that has a reasonable chance of influencing the reporting outcome in known ways. This is what public relations professionals do.

4. Finally our society affords people the right to try to manage their self-defined interests in the reporting process as they see fit, within the parameters of the law, and to avail themselves, by financial or other inducements, of the services of those who are expert in doing this.

Thus seen, public relations is a product of our societal commitment to freedom of the press, and to the freedom of citizens to look after their interests in dealing with the press.

From these propositions it follows that the "public good" served by public relations lies in its ability to the rightful and lawfully pursued interests of those we serve, ultimately as they define their interests.

It means that the main ethical decision to be made by public relations professional is whether or not to do a particular assignment, and to cash a particular cheque. Further, it means that unethical professional conduct is any conduct which deliberately undermines the interests of the client, in breach of our contract with them.

Thus seen, it is apparent that it is the practitioner's personal view of the ethics of the client's interests that circumscribes their ethical conduct. Ethics are not defined by the tactics used in a public relations intervention (such as the determination of what to disclose and not to disclose, to whom, when and how). Nor are our ethics rooted in any transcendent values (such as honesty, accuracy, integrity and truth in public communications). If we are ethical, we choose to serve clients whose self-defined lawful interests are, in our view ethical. Or we clear out.

So where does "public enlightenment" come into public relations?

Theoretically, in a free society with a free press, it should go like this: the responsibility of the newsmaker (or their PR agent) is to advance only those facts and advocate only those views that they want the public to receive; reporters have a responsibility to report all the facts and viewpoints they hear from a variety of sources which they deem relevant, so as to provide a fair and "balanced" account of the matter being reported; "public enlightenment" should be the end result of this process.

In practice, needless to say, this dynamic process never works perfectly, but in the long run, it works reasonably well, at least better than any apparent alternative, provided that everyone does their job.

However, confounding the role of the public relations professional in this process with that of the journalist serves neither the process, the profession, our clients, nor the public interest. It is, at best, muddle-headed self-deception. It ultimately makes us look foolish, or dishonest, or both.

Analysis of the text

Before discussing the above text, you’d better scan some linguistic aspects of it:

1) Pick up from the text the following stylish combinations and write down all the synonyms to them in your notebook:

Advocacy of viewpoints; dissemination of viewpoints; transcendent values; expertise; transparency in communications; perceived culpability; to require inherently; to assign a reporter; to intervene in the process; financial inducement; to circumscribe somebody’s conduct.

2) Form the following phrases otherwise:

Within the parameters of the law; to confound the roles of somebody; to fulfill something with a mark-up; to be highly selective in; to be secretive in; to be disingenuously mule-headed; to deem something relevant; muddle-headed self-deception; to afford somebody the right; to avail oneself of something; to clear out.

3) Explain the difference:

Societal – social; expert – expertise – experience; conduct – behaviour (consult the text, if need be).

4) Explain the metaphorical combinations:

To anchor one’s conduct; to espouse the freedom of press; tub-thumping; to hire a barker.

5) Find in the text the English equivalents to:

- иметь дело с чем-либо, иметь отношение к чему-л.;

- в нарушение контракта;

- вскрывать факты;

- проталкивать чьи-л. интересы;

- составлять большую часть чего-л.;

- быть непоколебимым (твердым) в выполнении чего-л.;

- определить исход дела;