TO SPIN OR NOT TO SPIN - THE ETHICS OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
By Professor Anne Gregory, Centre for Public Relations Studies, Leeds Business School, Leeds Metropolitan University.
The Institute of Public Relations Inaugural Annual General Meeting Lecture
May 2, 2002

It is a simple fact that despite our industry's success — growth in the UK at about 17% each year, more employed in public relations than in advertising, the third most popular choice for graduates (IPR website) — its reputation seems to be declining.

Not only is public relations a growing and popular industry, organisations are increasingly acknowledging that a communications professional is a necessary appointment and that organised internal and external communication is a vital ingredient in management.

Why then do we see comments such as this?

"In fact, you would be hard pushed to find an industry which is as gleefully vilified as the noble profession of public relations — otherwise know as the 'latrine of parasitic misinformation' as it was described by the Guardian" (Farish, 1998)

I think we would all agree that our occupation, profession, craft, whatever you want to call it, is not held in the highest esteem and that we find ourselves defending it more often than we feel comfortable. We are almost the new estate agents — although people increasingly need our services, they are sceptical about what we say. We are not to be trusted. The question of ethics is at the heart of our discomfort.

If the field of public relations were a client, we wouldn't choose to start from here. On the other hand, there is no group of people better equipped to do something about it, and do something about it we must.

No more can organisations exist without a 'licence to operate'. It's the same whether they are Royalty plc, Megaoil Corp, Borsetshire County Council, Good Charity or Josephine Soap, local butcher. The notion of stakeholding is here to stay and like it or not organisations are accountable. The Friedman notion of business just being an economic unit and therefore not socially accountable just does not hold any more. Corporate Social Responsibility is now firmly on the agenda and public relations often takes the lead.

We live in a complex and competitive world, full of contradictions, ambiguities and uncertainty. And as Pearson (1989) put it so well "public relations practice is situated at precisely that point where competing interests collide. Indeed, public relations problems can be defined in terms of the collision, or potential collision of these interests. Serving client and public interests simultaneously is the seemingly impossible mission of the public relations practitioner".

We practice our craft or profession in different ways. But there are two general approaches to the way we practice public relations – what academics call paradigms – which have been identified by practitioners and observers who want to describe what is actually going on.

The first is based on a standard business view of systems theory which sees an organisation is part of a wider world. It exists by accepting inputs which are transformed into outputs. It receives feedback on those outputs and adjusts accordingly. An organisation has boundaries and has to constantly change and adapt to accommodate and affect the external environment. Systems theory as applied to public relations seeks to explain how organisations interact with the external and internal worlds and how those interactions are managed.

At the boundary is the public relations practitioner who both represents the organisation to the external environment and the external environment to the internal world of the organisation.

The most coherent exponent of this view of public relations is James Grunig (Grunig and Hunt, 1984), an American academic who came up with four models of public relations practice. Grunig says that excellent public relations is research based and the practitioner should aspire to a position where genuine two-way communication takes place. A main tenet of this position is that the organisation is willing to change as well as seeking to change the public with whom it communicates

The second paradigm is founded on the principle that it is the role of the public relations professional to persuade the publics of an organisation to a particular view. Having put forward a persuasive argument it is then up to others to challenge that.

The rhetorical tradition goes back to Ancient Greece. Modern day adherents of the rhetorical or persuasion tradition say that their duty is to bring to the ‘wrangle of the market place of public opinion’ a particular position. It is then the responsibility of others to bring countervailing views and, through discourse, truth or meaning will be discovered.

By observing current practice we can see that, for many organisations, public relations is undoubtedly employed to persuade. Perhaps that is the honest truth about the vast majority of practice. There is, however, another aspect to this world view and that is that if someone or an organisation puts forward a partisan view, this should be honestly recognised and challenge should be welcomed. Without permitting this vital, challenging component, putting forward a partisan view is quite simply propaganda.

The awkward caveat for us as public relations practitioners is that those who propose an opposing view should do so as equals: equal in power, in access and in setting the agenda.

I now want to turn to the subject of ethics itself. Ethics are to do with actions. They are principles, which help you choose the right course of action. Ethics are based on moral theories that define what is good and then allow us to make judgements on right actions. For example, if truthfulness is good (ie desirable), a right action is choosing to tell the truth. Choice is crucial.

The two major ethical traditions are Deontology (from the Greek word Deontos meaning duty or obligation) and Teleology (Teleos means "brought to an end".)

Deontology requires you to do something because it is your duty. It is intrinsically good in itself and is entirely rational in its basis. Deontology often finds its expression in a Golden Rule. For example,most religions have embedded in them something akin to "do unto others as you would have done unto you". The key to Deontology is that only duty and obligation should guide an action and anything motivated from self-interest is not a right or moral action.

Thus certain actions are in and of themselves good, for example telling the truth, being just. There are problems with this approach. It does not take into account any consequences that may follow. So you have to tell the truth even if a mad axeman asks you where your colleague is and has the clear intent of butchering them.

Furthermore, professional life may be seen to have all kinds of duties or obligations and what if these collide? Is there such a thing as a dominant duty? For example, what if our customers tell us they want us to be involved in community programmes, but our shareholders are having their dividend cut?

Teleologists believe that a right action is one that has good consequences. There are two main objections to these consequential theories of ethics. First, they lead to ‘means justifies the ends’ thinking- so telling lies is OK as long as the outcome is good. You can lie to the axeman to protect your colleague. Second, as with Deontology, what if one good conflicts with another.

In practice, I would suggest that most people take a mix of these two approaches. For example, we would say that there are basic duties, such as justice, non-injury, fidelity, beneficence and so on which we would try to live by as a general rule. However, we also have to temper these with the realities of the situation and an understanding of the consequences of upholding these principles.

One way out of the uncertainty is is to apply some principles to decision-making where ethics are involved. There are a number of ethical decision-making models, one of which seems especially appropriate to public relations. This is Potter’s Box. Ralph Potter worked at Harvard Divinity School. He based his thinking on a combination of Deontology and Teleology.

The thinking is that values and the way they are established is critically important. Different social groups (including different ethnic groups and different religions) have different values and therefore different ethics. Furthermore duties and obligations are not free floating absolutes that all social groups agree on. They too are based on social values which vary between different societies.

Potter contended that people would be able to make better ethical decisions if they systematically considered the four elements within this box.

This process forces us to prioritise values and publics in any given ethical dilemma, as in the following example.

Financial Services plc have been downsizing because the increasingly competitive nature of the industry requires it to cut costs. They have been in discussions about a merger with Money Investment plc which are in difficulties. Although rumours are rife, negotiations have not been completed. You recommend a press release be issued to respond to rumours and senior management ask you to play it down and say discussions are at a very early stage. You know that discussions are well advanced and the company will make a formal announcement early next month. What do you do?

Using Potter’s Box you first analyse the situation. You have been asked to put out misleading information on matters which are very important to some key stakeholders. When this is discovered you will be regarded as unethical and your reputation will be damaged. There may even be legal implications.

Second you identify the values that are important here, honesty, integrity, integrity may feature.

Third you select the relevant ethical principles. What about Stock Exchange rules? Are there any regulatory issues with the financial service regulators? What about industry and company Codes of Conduct? What about the IPR Code? What about your personal ethics? Don’t lie. Be loyal to your employer. Do to others what you would want others to do to you.

Fourth, prioritise your stakeholders, who may include, Stock Exchange, FSA, shareholders, employees, customers, financial media, self, the industry.

This will be an uncomfortable business since it will force you to confront tough decisions about values and publics, but your decision will be better and more consistent for it.

I would also remind you of our ancient Greek friends. Aristotle said that to be virtuous you need to practice virtue. By the same token, practising ethical decision-making should help us become ethical.

Ultimately it is all down to us personally. Individuals make up the mass. It is not professional bodies but people who are ethical or otherwise. It is up to each of us to act ethically.

What does all this mean for us as jobbing practitioners? I suggest we need to do a number of things:

1. We need to recognise and acknowledge that we have a problem – despite its growth public relations has if anything a decreasing reputation

2. We need to recognise and acknowledge the complexity of our position.

3. We need to think again about what we are here to do as an emerging profession. I don’t think definitions about reputation do us justice or thoroughly describe what we do. They are a consequence of what we do.

4. We need to look at our Code of Conduct; I don’t see anything specific about ethics, although it does mention integrity and referring bad practice to the Institute. The earlier version had references about "having regard for the truth", but that has been removed.

5. I think the IPR should be much more pro-active in exposing bad practice by members – and non-members. It does us harm.

6. I believe we should push again for Chartered Status and that ethical standards should be at the core of our differentiation from non-Chartered practitioners.

7. We ought to look again at our thinking on evaluation. Good evaluation should examine not only the achievement of objectives, but on how the programme has been conducted and whether ethical considerations have been taken into account. In particular, we need to look at the quality of relationships that have been established.

8. We need to examine our education and training programmes and approved courses and ensure that ethical practice is exemplified. We also need some specific training on ethics and ethical decision-making in the real world of public relations practice.

References

Farish, S (1998) A chorus of communications, in Managing Communication in a Changing World, London, IPR

Grunig, J (1984) in J. Grunig and T. Hunt, Managing Public Relations, Orlando. Harcourt, Brace

Pearson, R (2000) Beyond Ethical Relativism in Public Relations in J Grunig and L Grunig (eds) Public Relations Research Annual, Vol 1, pp 67-86, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Abstract, published in ‘Behind the Spin’, Public Relations Magazine for the College of St. Mark and St. John, Plymouth – edited by John Hitchins, Senior Lecturer