Tag Archives: publics

The Importance of Being Ethical in PR

26 Jan

When discussing what PR is, one of my readers made a comment that PR practitioners must possess “superior ethical behavior” and be transparent, genuine, and honest in their work.

I thought this was an interesting thing to point out since I have heard many people that are not involved with PR say that PR professionals must manipulate the public into believing their client is something they really are not – making a client seem better than they really are or covering up/hiding anything that may be deemed as bad publicity. This is absolutely not true.

Being manipulative, deceitful, and secretive will cause the cycle of bad PR to continue.

It is of utmost importance to be ethical, transparent, genuine, and honest. While incidents of bad publicity often stem from unethical behavior and actions, they are corrected by ethical decisions by ethical PR practitioners. Bad publicity will happen, and when it does, it is the role of the PR professional to:

  • Acknowledge what happened
  • Take responsibility for what happened
  • Figure out how to prevent it from happening again and take action to ensure it does not happen again
  • Let the public know that you have completed the above three steps – Depending on the severity of the issue, this can be done by issuing a press release or through a campaign.

As a PR student, I can cite many examples of things gone wrong that have been fixed in an ethical way, instead of the company trying to lie about it, avoid responsibility, or cover it up. (One of the best examples: Tylenol). On the other hand, we can also examine cases where companies do not acknowledge or take responsibility for what happened, try to keep it a secret, and hope that it will just “go away.” (One of the worst examples: Exxon).

A recent incident I would like to note as an example involves the quick service food restaurant, Chick-fil-A. Two Asian customers received racist receipts that named them “Ching” and “Chong” at a Southern California Chick-fil-A location. Immediately after the incident, the company acknowledged it and took responsibility for it. They apologized and released a statement to the public, and the employee was terminated.

Chick-fil-A did not need to address this issue to all of their customers. They could have tried to keep the incident secret and only addressed the parties involved. They also could have chosen to only address customers in Southern California, but they chose to release a statement to their entire customer population all over the United States. This is an example of a company being transparent and honest with its publics.

What’s next? Chick-fil-A should create a diversity training program for its employees, further acknowledging and citing this incident as one that does not reflect the company’s beliefs, and emphasizing the importance of employees to share the company’s acceptance and respect for diversity.

What else do you think Chick-fil-A could do? What other cases can you cite of ethical PR behavior gone right or non-ethical behavior gone wrong?

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What is PR?

11 Jan

If you are a PR student or professional, one or both scenarios might be all too familiar:

Scenario #1
Person: “So what are you going to school for?”
You: “Public relations.”
Person: “Okay,” laughs, “…And what are you going to do with that?”


Scenario #2
Person: “So what do you do for a living?”
You: “Public Relations.”
Person: “Oh okay, so you plan events and stuff? You go on TV? It’s basically glorified customer service, right?”

With PR professionals being portrayed by characters like Samantha Jones from Sex and the City and television shows attempting to show the ins and outs of the industry like SPINdustry and Spin Crowd, it is evident why the general public has the wrong view of what public relations actually is. People think it is about planning events, being on television, and being a socialite. It really irks me when people laugh and question what kind of living one can make out of PR or when they try to define PR to me when they have no idea.

Interestingly enough, I chose the field of PR by mistake, but it happened to work out for me.

I initially wanted to go into broadcast journalism, but I wanted a more stable career path to success. My father suggested I look into PR. He said something along the lines of, “Well, we have a PR person at my job, and pretty much all they do is go on TV and act as a spokesperson for the company. So it’s the same thing [as broadcast journalism], but at least you’ll be working for a company, so you don’t have to move around a lot with different TV networks.”

Now, I realize that being on TV has little or nothing to do with the job of most PR professionals. In smaller companies, it may be the case that there are only a few members of a PR department (or possibly even one person that encompasses all that is PR for the company), and thus the person writing the script may also be the one on-camera. However, the majority of PR jobs have little to do with being the on TV.

To be successful in PR, a person must be a great writer. Writing is much of what PR entails – from writing copy for brochures, websites, social media, TV and radio spots, and press releases to writing pitch letters to potential clients; ghostwriting speeches, op-eds, letters to shareholders from corporate executives; and employee newsletters. Everything that a PR professional does involves writing. In fact, a textbook definition of PR may define it as conveying cohesive and concise messages from organizations to their publics. How do we usually communicate these messages? Through writing. And who are these publics? The organization’s publics are both internal and external. Its internal publics may be executive management, employees, and shareholders. Its external publics may be its target audiences, consumers, communities, and the general public can be just a few of an organization’s publics.

I am lucky because I fell into this field, and I happen to love writing. It worked out for me, but if you think PR is all about the glamour and glitz of planning events, being on TV, and mingling with socialites, you may want to pick another career choice.

If you are a PR student or professional, what would you define PR as?

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