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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Does the public need to be guarded against us?

Public perception of the public relations profession is so bad that some individuals feel compelled to keep an eye on us and report on what they find. That’s the gist of an article published today in UK’s The Guardian, featuring an interview with David Miller, professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde. Miller got start-up funding for a Web site called SpinWatch, designed to do for UK citizens what PRWatch does for folks in the US: guard them against “the manipulations of the PR industry.”

“Spin techniques are much more extensive than is generally realised, encompassing media management, lobbying, corporate social responsibility, investor relations, dirty tricks and spying. There is precious little critical or timely research available in the UK or EU on the increasing influence of spin in public life.”

In the interview, Miller detailed how The Guardian published an article that fell prey to PR:

“‘You ran a story about a report from the International Policy Network claiming that climate change was nowhere near as bad as had been previously thought,’ he says. ‘What you didn’t say is that the IPN is a small company ... that has received a $50,000 (??27,000) donation from Exxon, the US oil giant. If your readers had been made aware of this, they might have read the article somewhat differently.’”

One of the most disturbing aspects of this story is the assumption that a study is tainted merely because it was funded by big oil. Did IPN disclose the funding? Did they explain the safeguards they took to ensure the study results were accurate and unbiased regardless of fthe funding source? If not, what PR firm was providing such dubious counsel?

Such skepticism arises, though, because there are so many instances of public relations designed to deceive the public. As I’ve noted here before, nearly every PR professional I’ve ever met is honest, sincere, hard-working, and ethical. They subscribe to the notion of two-way, symmetrical communications. That is, the effort involves a dialogue with the goal of achieving a win-win for the client and the target audience. But these efforts that characterize most of the profession are largely ignored (if they’re noticed at all), while the unethical (or just plain stupid) work is held up as examples of what public relations is designed to do. After all, virtually every job we undertake is designed to be noticed by some public somewhere.

(An interesting aside: Two-way symmetrical communication will always produce the best outcomes, but it also takes the most work. PR aimed to deceive is, among other things, the easy way out.)

I know I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but individual bloggers are not going to turn the tide. The profession as a whole—as represented by its associations—need to point out these failings and, where appropriate, take action. (Ethics policies, for example, provide for sanctions against violating members, including expulsion from the association.)

More to the point, the associations should be the ones running sites like PRWatch and SpinWatch. As long as the policing of the profession’s ethical behavior is being done to us and not by us, all of us will continue to be represented by the worst among us.

Comments
  • 1.I guess Professor Miller's story got published without any PR input. It seems sad to me that people are so filled with hatred for the success of others that they are prepared to malign, without any evidence that, in this case, a donation in support of research into very questionable science. Miller nereds help.

    How long, you ask, will we have to wait before one or more associations go out and fight for the reputation of our profession? In the USA, there are two options. 1/ The directors of PRSA and IABC could fire their respective top paid executives. Or, 2/ Judith Phair, the elected head of PRSA, could continue her recently-begun efforts to at least speak out on behalf of public relations ethics. She's pulling her punches, -- the PRSA web site has the two latest statements and they don't bother naming names -- but at least it is a start.

    Over at IABC, I think David Kistle is a write-off. Neither IABC paid boss Julie Freeman or Kistle-the-elected have done anything about the LA ethics scandal about billing nor the Department of Education scandal about "buying editorial" and it's too late to start now.

    Maybe Warren Bickford, who becomes IABC boss in five months, will stand up and be counted.

    BAK

    Brian Kilgore | January 2005 | Toronto, Canada

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