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by
Peter
O'Malley
O'Malley
Communications
When
pondering ethical matters in the
abstract, there is a natural and
powerful tendency to want to reach
personally comforting, and perhaps
truly inspiring, conclusions, even
if it requires that we overlook
the obvious.
Such
appears to be the case with the
Code of Professional Conduct of
the Canadian Public Relations
Society. It preaches that 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 is all about --
namely, the advocacy and
dissemination of the partisan
viewpoints of those who engage our
services, for the benefit of those
who engage our services.
Contrary
to what the CPRS Code says, the
real basis for defining how we
serve the public good, and for our
ethical professional behaviour, is
not founded in any set of
transcendent values, however
inspiring they may be. Rather, our
ethics are embedded in the terms
of the contracts we freely enter
into with the clients we choose to
serve. As with lawyers, the deal
is not complicated. We agree to
use our expertise to promote the
interests of our client -- as
ultimately defined by the client
-- within the parameters of the
law, in exchange for which they
compensate us, usually in the form
of cashable cheques.
In
some specific instances, a
client's true interest may lie in
complete openness, transparency
and disclosure in their
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 sensible ambition
to be enlighteners of the public,
with a mark-up.
In
many instances, however, the
client's interest may lie in
seeing that particular facts never
see the light of day, and if they
do burst forth for all to see, to
minimize the impact, duration and
even the clarity of any resulting
reporting 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 of
our work as PR practitioners.
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". (Example: the Tylenol
crisis, where the company was seen
to be a victim). In crisis
situations where the client's
perceived or real culpability is
high, however, damage control
almost always means being highly
selective in what is said
publicly, and in being very
careful about when and where
anything at all is said. (Example:
Bhopal, or the Exxon Valdez
crisis.)
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 may be true and may even be
important to getting at the
"truth" of the matter,
but the disclosure of which would
be harmful to the client's
interest.
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
highly selective in the
presentation of information.
Ultimately, it may mean being
disingenuously mule-headed, and
even secretive. In many settings,
this may serve the client's
interests, but it does not serve
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 therefore no
ethical foundation for what we do?
I say, not at all, because there
are a set of socially-sanctioned
and important propositions around
which to anchor our professional
conduct, once we move beyond the
silly idea that we are really
journalists, once removed from the
news copy.
Next page > An
Ethical Foundation for Public
Relations > Page 1, 2
Peter
O'Malley is an Ottawa-based
communications consultant who
has been a member of the
Canadian Public Relations
Society for 15 years, and has
served on the Board of Directors
of the Ottawa Society.
http://www.omalco.com
| omalley@omalco.com
©
Copyright O'Malley Communications
Inc. (Reprinted with permission)
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