10 ethical issues facing public relations - PRCA Ethics Council Annual
Artificial intelligence, paid influence, mental health and fake news are all ethical issues identified by a group of international practitioners in a series of reflective essays published by the PRCA.
The PRCA Ethics Council has published its annual perspective of ethical challenges facing PR practice in 2021. It contains a series of reflections from 20 practitioners around the world.
The Council was launched in May 2020 to raise ethical standards in PR around the world.
Key themes emerging from the review include:
International culture: East vs West
The role of PR professionals in tackling misinformation and protecting the truth
The who-to-work-for dilemma
Building trust and accountability
Avoiding purpose washing
“There’s no shortage of ethical challenges facing communicators right now. With misinformation swirling, trust in institutions declining, and businesses operating in new ways, it’s essential we put ethics at the front of the line. I hope the different perspectives that are so generously shared by global leaders in this report will help drive a much-needed dialogue,” said David Gallagher, President of Growth and Development, International at Omnicom Public Relations Group and chair, PRCA Ethics Council.
Here are ten of the ethical issues facing practitioners highlighted in The PRCA Ethics Council Annual Perspective 2021.
1. Paid influence
In France, a 1964 decree lays down the principle that the practice of public relations is incompatible with advertising. Hence, earned media and paid media should not be managed by the same practitioners. However, the growing confusion between digital PR and influencer marketing is leading PR agencies to move away from this ban at the risk of increasingly frequent ethical issues. To mitigate the risk, SCRP, the French leading professional organisation, has recently taken the initiative of a Charter of Good Practices aimed at setting the framework for ethical practices regarding influencers relations.
Stéphane Billiet, PRCA Ethics Council Member and CEO, WE Agency
2. Infodemic puts trust to the test
2021 has seen the arrival of a new kind of threat – an infodemic. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2021 research highlighted that trust in all information sources significantly declined as misinformation spread throughout most of last year. According to this same research, news organisations in South Africa are seen as biased and most South Africans believe that journalists are intentionally trying to mislead them. What will this mean for us as communicators who rely on media channels to tell stories, spread news, information, and insights?
Karena Crerar, PRCA Ethics Council Member and Managing Director, Edelman South Africa
3. Technology and artificial intelligence
Conversations are moving away from the bottom line and towards the triple bottom line –profit, people, and the planet. The tech sector has been no stranger to this movement. But at the same time, ethical discourse has never been more prominent. AI, and the bias that resides within it, has been a huge conversation. Tech players and their product development teams are increasingly under the microscope, as high-profile examples of gender, racial, and sexual orientation bias are regularly hitting the headlines. Whether it is a case of cognitive human bias, or incomplete and insufficient data sets that have caused the problems, these are examples of an industry moving too fast, without the proper level of care and thought.
Katie De Cozar, PRCA Technology Group Chair and Head of Enterprise Technology, CCgroup
4. Campaigns hijacked by misinformation
Misinformation is not just an issue for those working in high profile areas such as vaccines and the environment. Any campaign can be hijacked by people spreading fake news. This can turn any campaign into a crisis. We need to be on constant watch for deep fakes and people misrepresenting our views. We also need to ensure we maintain a duty of care when asking supporters to engage in social media content. The last 12 months has seen a rise in hate speech directed to charity staff and beneficiaries.
Simon Francis, PRCA Charity & Not for Profit Group Chair and Founder Member of Social Enterprise Campaign Collective
5. Who would you work for?
These days, admittedly with Captain Hindsight at the helm, the fact that some PR pioneers worked for the Nazis is indefensible. Hitler may be an extreme case, but where does one draw the line today? No government is perfect, but some regimes are surely further from perfection. China in the 2020s seems to be going places –but so did Germany in the 1930s. In both cases, state and business interests were and are hard to disentangle. Interviewed for our new book, a senior insider argued that PR people “don’t care if people are persecuted for religious or political beliefs. They don’t care that they’re not working in a democracy… if there is a dollar sign attached to it, their scruples disappear overnight.”
Simon Goldsworthy, PRCA Ethics Council Member and Co-Author of PR Ethics: The Real World Guide
6. Taking a stance
A stance does not function retrospectively. […] Define now, and now at the latest, on which issues you must – and on which you want to – take a stand. And then go into scenario planning as in any good crisis preparation. What is likely to happen if I adopt this attitude, actively or reactively? Can we stand the heat? Can we maintain public advocacy of our position? How do I handle which reactions and through which channels? To advocate your position you need resources. And a stance is a long-term position. Even if the stock market, customers, and other stakeholders punish you temporarily, taking a stance pays dividends.
Sabine Hückman, CEO, Ketchum Germany
7. Defending the truth in practice
While the internet has advanced the world in many ways, it has also brought an onslaught of misinformation and fake news. The problem has been compounded by the COVID-19 outbreak. The most salient example of this is the spread of vaccine misinformation, a phenomenon that undermines public health efforts and hinders global vaccination progress and our exit from the pandemic. Thankfully, healthcare firms and governments worldwide are doing their part to debunk fake news and defend the truth. Similarly, the communications industry needs to be alert and adopt ways to identify and check the dissemination of false narratives by making fact-checks an indispensable part of its work. Our role must also extend to holding ourselves and our clients to high standards of authenticity.
Nitin Mantri, PRCA Ethics Council Member, ICCO President and Group CEO, Avian WE
8. Reclaiming lost humanity
The global pandemic saw the outpouring of feelings around race, mental wellbeing, ways of working, and socio-economic hardships that shone a light on the cultures that define the PR and comms industry. Redefining culture is the number one ethical challenge for comms advisors because now we can’t unsee all of the suffering and isolation endured by colleagues, clients being close to collapse, and the realisation that perhaps our industry wasn’t (for some) such a great place to work after all.
Barbara Phillips, PRCA Race & Ethnicity Equity Board Chair, and Founder, Brownstone Communications
9. Understanding different markets
National values and established cultures play a large part in understanding what is, and isn’t, acceptable. When does a journalist freebie become a ‘bribe’, especially in a country where the culture of gift-giving is widespread? It’s important for Western businesses and comms pros to understand such differences, many of which are borne out of a more secular Buddhist perspective than a Christian view on how society and individuals should behave.
Lee Nugent, PRCA Ethics Council Member, Regional Director APAC, Archetype
10. Mental health and company culture
As agency leaders, we have a responsibility to address the creeping mental health issue that was burdening our industry long before COVID-19. That responsibility extends to acknowledging the role employers play in peoples’ mental health equilibrium. This doesn’t just mean setting up a helpline or signing a charter. It is about prevention – as well as cure. It’s about firing a client bully (we did this in 2020) despite the dent in your bottom line. It’s about recognising that a 9-5 working hours contract does not work for a UK account manager working on US or APAC accounts.
Nicky Regazzoni, PRCA Virtual PR Agency Group Chair and Co-Founder and Co-CEO, PR Network
