In case anyone didn’t catch wind of the recent stankness, an article on CBS News has blatantly defamed the public relations profession. Naturally to the chagrin of PRSA.
The hub bub started with legal analyst Adam Andrew Cohen published “The Flak on Flacks” on June 1st. The article debased the public relations community for questioning whether Scott McLellan violated “the ‘ethics’ of his craft” by lying to the American public.
To the point: Yes. That was treacherous. Really, really reprehensible conduct.
But Cohen started a bit of a brawl with snide, sweeping generalizations: “Apparently, an industry the very essence of which is to try to convince people that a turkey is really an eagle has a rule that condemns lying.”
And gems like: “PR people are trained to be slickly untruthful or half-truthful. Misinformation and disinformation are the coin of the realm.”
To say the spinners are spun up would be an understatement. Introspection follows rage.
The Sleeping Monster Unfurls
PRSA submitted a formal response, notified its members about the article and encouraged people to speak up.
There must be about 150 comments in sum, and roughly 97% represent backlash from PR practitioners. (It’s hard to tell with so many duplicate comments.) Most feel, as one commentator stated, that Cohen exhibited “Irresponsible journalism and an unwarranted, ill-informed condemnation of an entire profession.” Others discuss the inherent ethics of PR, “Cohen: we can’t lie.”
Cohen issued a “non-apology” yesterday in response to (his words) “the silly kerfluffle” that ensued from ’self righteous’ and ‘hypocritical’ comments from the PR community. He wants us to take a discerning look at how this self-governing practice governs itself.
And Look Inside We Must
PRSA has long-challenged its community to practice ethical PR. It doesn’t always happen. Clearly, the evolution of the field has not trickled across to those who still consider our daily bread to be propaganda.
As PR continues to integrate with social media engagement and word of mouth – we’ve moved from standard-issue to hyper-strict transparency and authenticity (Hello, social PR). The perception associated with our realm will change if we enforce what we preach and figure out a better way to spread word about PR efforts that are executed professionally and ethically.
Questionable moves should be bounced off of PRSA’s Code of Ethics and The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Ethics Code.
In the meantime, some will boycott CBS. Some will think more before speaking, and maybe stop schilling outright. Seems like the most meaningful thing would be to learn from this lesson in public defamation.
As maureenschri noted in her comment:
The one point I believe McClellan was trying to make, that Andrew Cohen missed, is that multiple publics – the press, Congress, voters, generals, the CIA, etc. – failed to ask the right questions.
The lesson I’ve learned through experience, 10 years in reporting and 10 years in PR, is the critical need to ask the right questions, the tough, probing questions that make people better at explaining why they’re taking an action, to rethink what they’re doing or to change the course of their action. The right questions do make people uncomfortable. But that’s my job.”
(Image credits: autumn_bliss and Lizette Greco)
The very idea that someone representing today’s media has the moral authority to call anyone else unethical or dishonest is a real stretch.
Second, I agree that asking tough, probing questions is necessary but that doesn’t take a company or a government off the hook for not being forthcoming. If you’re intentionally holding back facts that you know would fundamentally impact the way your information is received, you can’t defend yourself later by stating, “he/she didn’t ask.” Well, you can I guess, and people do. But that may be just one of the reasons for PR’s sorry reputation.
Questioning someone else’s ethics without evidence is often a sign of the accuser’s own propensity toward being unethical.
Qui; I wrote about this yesterday and made the point that there are two camps in PR, one that seeks to build long-term relationships, and the other that seeks to build quick results at any cost. That is the monster with two heads, the two paradigms of our profession.
It’s such a hairy issue, and of course a good opportunity for growth.
Leo and Richard, great points and thanks for your remarks. True that more proactive communications is needed to brand PR-at-large. That’s why PRSA was formed, but it’s an uphill battle. As Leo noted, the probing questions are just one of many steps on that ascent.
Kami, you’re post is spot on http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-pr-paid-to-lie-two-paradigms-of.html. Good fortune and personal integrity is what keeps many of us in the company of fellow servants, intermediaries, ombudsmen. How can we check and balance the other camp? Self-governing is a challenge.
First, Leo’s comment that “The very idea that someone representing today’s media has the moral authority to call anyone else unethical or dishonest is a real stretch” … is just outrageous. I know many very ethical journalists, whose sincerity and dedication to ethics in their work is unquestionable. Unfortunately, their profession has been tarnished in recent years by unethical practices of a relative few.
That, by the way, is why these ethical lapses are “news” … because they are unusual. If all journalists were unethical all the time, when a journalist invents a source or quote, it would be “dog bites man” … as in, “so what! we all know that happens all the time!” That would not be news …
In public relations, there are many ethical and honest and sincere people, who unfortunately are associated in broad brush strokes with those who are unethical and dishonest.
That said, in both journalism and PR, there is what I believe to be an inexcusable inability or unwillingness of the community of professionals to adequately police itself and enforce the codes of ethics of either the Society of Professional Journalists (Sigma Delta Chi) or the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
I am not a PRSA member, in part because I am in disagreement with the October 2000 decision of the PRSA to drop the enforcement provisions that had been in place since 1959 in its code of ethics, relying instead on the personal commitment of members to uphold professional standards.
Too hard to enforce, perhaps, but with no teeth in the ethics code there will always be those taking the unethical or dishonest path, be they journalists or PR folk, and besmirching the reputation of the rest. For my part, PRSA’s unability or unwillingness to put teeth into its ethics code continues to be a stumbling block to my joining the organization.