Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

The Public Relations Society of America’s ethical guidelines are perhaps the industry’s most widely recognized code for ethics. They cover the necessity for honesty, accuracy, integrity, and confidentiality. 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. 

Both codes are quite comprehensive and benefit PR agencies and companies when followed. But are they comprehensive enough? Perhaps it’s time for PR to adopt some of journalism’s ethical guidelines. PR inherently serves the public (it’s in the name), and PR practitioners are functioning more as journalists; more PR content is now reaching the public directly without review and without editing by independent journalists. 

With this in mind, we’ve examined some principles from The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, not (yet) covered in PRSA’s code, that PR pros ought to consider adopting....

On a special web page devoted to ethics, PRSA has this to say:

“The practice of public relations can present unique and challenging ethical issues. At the same time, protecting integrity and the public trust are fundamental to the profession’s role and reputation. Bottom line, successful public relations hinges on the ethics of its practitioners.”

With that in mind, consider these situations...

Once again, a public relations firm is in the news for the unethical professional conduct of one of its own.

And once again, it’s over the issue of disclosure.

Reports surfaced in Gawker and elsewhere yesterday that a young professional employed by Mercury Public Affairs had posed as a university student and registered under a false name to gain access to a “closed press conference” held by Warehouse Workers United (WWU). Mercury’s client, Walmart, is trying to open a store in the Chinatown area of Los Angeles, and local labor groups, among others, are challenging the store’s permitting. Allegedly, the Mercury employee infiltrated the meeting to interview union members, one would assume to gain inside information that would benefit her client.

This woman’s actions—and the subsequent reactions—have rippled through the profession, leaving her unemployed and the public relations profession with yet another black eye that erodes the public’s trust in our craft....

What struck me recently in conversation with a few thoughtful PR pros was that we should be concentrating on adding values as well as value to programs.

When you look at a grove of old growth trees do you see value or values? That may define the true PR professional...