Ethics in PR are something EVERY practitioner has to grapple with. Upholding integrity in the public relations and communications industry is a topic that’s often glossed over, but it’s necessary to build trust.
Mary Beth West and Jared Meade, both public relations strategists, recently launched a LinkedIn group for those who want to join a community of like-minded professionals, The #PRethics Community, to elevate standards in PR.
Show summary:
In this episode of PR Explored, host Michelle Garrett, a public relations consultant, discusses the crucial topic of PR ethics with industry experts Mary Beth West and Jared Mead. They explore the importance of ethical practices in public relations, share their extensive backgrounds, and discuss the creation of an online PR ethics community on LinkedIn.
The episode covers why ethics in PR is often overlooked, the necessity of integrating ethical discussions into the classroom, and the importance of collaborating with legal teams.
Highlighting relevant resources such as industry associations, ethical guidelines, and initiatives like the International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO) and the Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI), the guests emphasize proactive steps to integrate ethical practices in PR.
The discussion also touches on the ethical use of AI in PR and the need for continuous advocacy to improve the public perception of the PR profession.
The episode concludes by encouraging PR professionals to engage deeply with ethical standards to enhance the industry’s credibility and effectiveness.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:39 Mary Beth’s Background and PR Ethics Advocacy
01:57 Jared’s Background and Ethics in PR
03:33 The Importance of PR Ethics
05:02 Challenges in Discussing PR Ethics
08:05 Ethics Education in PR
17:05 Handling Unethical Requests
25:44 Creating Effective Ethics Guidelines
31:35 The Psychological Toll of Whistleblowing
34:20 The Importance of Legal and PR Collaboration
37:07 Navigating the Court of Public Opinion
43:10 Ethical Use of AI in PR
55:51 Advocating for PR Ethics
58:40 Final Thoughts and Resources
Show notes:
PR Ethics community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prethics/
Mary Beth West on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbwcommunications/
Jared Meade on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredmeademps/
Jared Meade of Rayne Strategy Group website: https://www.raynestrategygroup.com/
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Ethical PR: Navigating Trust and Responsibility with Mary Beth West and Jared Meade
Michelle: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of PR Explored. I’m Michelle Garrett, your host, and I’m so glad to be back. And I have today two really special guests that I’ve known for a while and I have a lot of respect for them. Both Mary Beth West and Jared Mead are here today. Welcome.
Jared: Thank you Michelle.
Thanks for having us.
Michelle: yes, we’re gonna be talking all about PR ethics, which is a topic that we probably don’t hear quite enough about, and, we’ll be getting into that While everybody gets situated, I would love for, let’s start with Mary Beth. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about you and your background and what you’ve been up to and all the good stuff.
Mary Beth.
Mary Beth: Sure. Absolutely. And Michelle, thank you so much for having us on and I’ve been in the public relations industry for about 30 years. I had an academic background in it as well. Majored in public relations through a school of [00:01:00] journalism. definitely learned a lot about those journalistic ethics running alongside PR ethics too.
But throughout my whole career, I had, starting out the first 10 or 20 years or so, a naive. View that, everyone had those same values of what PR ethics were all about and how they should be applied to our work. in, in recent years, I’ve had some rude awakenings and so I’ve become much more of an advocate about helping to try to spread some awareness about that.
I’ve been involved in a number of different industry associations and Jared and I have just recently started a PR ethics community online on LinkedIn. And we really welcome everyone to join us on that community for other discussions. But, thank you so much for having us on today and I’m really looking forward to the chat.
Michelle: Thanks for being here. I’m happy to have you. And I would love for Jared to [00:02:00] tell us a little bit about his background and what he’s up to these days. Sure.
Jared: So I have been in public relations a little over 20 years now. flew by, when I first left college I never thought I’d make it to this point, but that’s flown by.
so yeah, I have my own consultancy that I have had for the past seven years, so helping. Business and organizational leaders with executive communication, crisis communication, as Mary Beth said, very interested in ethics. just the transparency and the way that we communicate with one another.
So that’s something I’m very interested in. I’m also an adjunct professor at a couple or adjunct instructor at a couple of universities in my area. So again, ethics is a big portion of what I like to talk about and teach to the next generation of, PR professionals because I believe it’s something that is not only important, but something that we don’t really talk about the way that we should or really I think, have the understanding that we all should have.
So that’s what I’m doing right [00:03:00] now.
Michelle: I think that, you both are excellent, folks to be starting a community like that because I’ve followed you both for a long time, but I know that you talk a lot about this, so it’s a real, it’s authentically coming from, a, place that you’re passionate about.
And I’m really happy to see it and I was happy to see the community on LinkedIn. I just put the link, in the comments in case anybody wants to check that out and Jo, join sign up. so yeah, and then ethics month, we were just talking about this too. PR ethics month is in September. So I think that this is good timing because we need to be talking about it all year round.
But September is actually the month where, It’s in the spotlight, right?
Jared: Yeah. again, many people have probably heard that, September’s PR Ethics Month. I’m one of those people that sometimes I get a little frustrated ’cause I September’s kind of that month when everyone’s, [00:04:00] mentioning ethics, they’re doing webinars, that sort of thing, which I think is great.
But I feel like the other 11 months outta the year, people put ethics to the, back burner and don’t think about it as much. And I really think that, especially in public relations, ethics month really should be every month. It should be something that we’re always talking about. We’re always thinking about.
I would love to see, it be a top of a conversation and webinars, webinar once a month where people just sit down and, hash out the ethics of what we do and why we do it and why public relations should be that, frontline, soldier, if you will, for ensuring that communication in any organization or business is done ethically.
Michelle: that’s a, so this brings up a point that we were also chatting about. You don’t see enough talk about PR ethics. You don’t see, you see a lot about measurement and of course you see a lot about how to pitch and get coverage and, all kinds of things. But we don’t see a lot [00:05:00] about ethics.
Why do you think that is?
Jared: I think there’s a, if you don’t mind, Mary, I’ll jump in. I think there’s a lot of reasons. first I think it’s because inherently people think that. What they’re doing, it’s ethical. So they don’t think that they have an issue with ethics. they’re just going about their day, going about their work.
so they don’t really think about it until they’re hit with a situation. so it’s not something that’s talked about. I think there could be other reasons that people, are afraid to talk about ethics because, sometimes there are some gray areas where it really takes a lot of kind of soul searching to, to figure out the best path forward.
And I think that scares some people. But I, think it’s, there’s many different reasons. And Mary Beth, I’ll let you jump in ’cause I’m sure you have a lot to say here as Well,
Mary Beth: I, have a, few theories. I think one of them is that we are in a cancel culture. Environment where I think there is a lot of sensitivity sometimes [00:06:00] about people being afraid of talking about ethics, afraid that they will, the, finger will get pointed back at them in some way.
Or their organization. And, I think there’s a lot of sensitivity about being hypocritical, which is, I think, a very reasonable thing. we all have to approach the topic of ethics with a realization that none of us is perfect. We have all made mistakes in our lives and in our careers. And, a big part of the reason that ethics should be at a forefront of conversation in public relations and in business.
Across the board is just to help all of us be better and help all of us an all ships rise mentality of encouraging good faith, encouraging good intent, and maybe adopting more of an approach of less blame game and finger pointing and more, Hey, let’s all try to embrace, the better kinds of decision making that we can all be proud of and make our [00:07:00] organizations proud as well.
Now that said, there are times when you do have to take a stand if you know that misconduct is occurring. And I know we’ll talk a minute in a little bit about whistle blowing and, those kinds of things. But, I do think that’s one of the reasons why there is trepidation about talking about it.
Michelle: Yeah, and to your point, nobody wants to finger point it back at them, So I think, we, know that there are bad actors in our profession. Some of them are very well known, and a lot of times they’re not really highlighted or called out at all because I think people just are a little bit afraid of, getting blow back or something.
I don’t know. But, I think that it’s great that we’re talking about it and that you all are shedding the light on, on issues. And I think that’s what the community on LinkedIn is gonna be great for too, is that people can kinda maybe call out examples or, share things that they’ve seen or, have questions about.
So let’s [00:08:00] hope that will, spur some more discussion about it. one of the things that may play into it is, that we were chatting, also about how ethics is not. One of the subjects of, sorry, subjects that’s often taught as often in the classroom. So if you’re newer to pr you may not really understand how to navigate the situations.
You may not even really recognize the situations, right away. So let’s talk a little bit about that.
Jared: Mary Beth, I’ll let you go.
Mary Beth: Yeah, so there are many categories of scenarios that public relations practitioners can encounter in their careers and throughout the longevity of their careers, not just in situational or day-to-day work.
and a lot of the different public relations industry ethics codes, and there are many, cover some of those key themes, things like conflict of [00:09:00] interest. Just honesty and accuracy in information, free flow of information, avoiding, situations where you’re divulging information that you’re not entitled to divulge.
so these are the types of things that I think by and large are treated in a lot of codes of ethics. But one of the things that’s not covered is the matter of retaliation and retaliation against people who report observed misconduct. And this really does go into the public relations practitioner’s wheelhouse.
And to Jared’s point earlier about why public relations has to be in leadership and in a leadership function on this, is because if an organization in the management sphere does something wrong and they know they’ve done something wrong, very often they’re asking their public relations staff. To communicate disinformation about it in order to deflect or [00:10:00] cover up, or, I mean it, if there are really court ethics issues in the entire culture of the organization, very often you will see situations like that where a PR practitioner’s really thrown back on their heels, they’re being asked to do something they know is not right in communicating false information or just, engaging in other types of behavior that, don’t reflect well on the PR industry, but certainly don’t reflect well on the organization either.
Jared, I’ll let you chime into some of that too, because that, I think that is one of the key motivators about why this topic is so important.
Jared: and I think too, as Mary Beth was saying, I think ethics isn’t taught in classrooms. I’m trying to find the right words to sum this up, but I think it’s one of those things that I.
We just don’t think about for whatever reason. we’re thinking about the tactical things of what we do in pr, the writing, the press releases, the, media relations aspect, the building [00:11:00] relationships with reporters. And we really don’t think about those tough situations that PR professionals are gonna get in throughout their career.
and I think one of the things that should be taught to PR students the same that I, will teach or talk to any, leader that I’m working with, business leader, is that you have to be willing, if you’re gonna lead in any aspect, you’re gonna, a whistleblower, you’re gonna speak up, you have to be willing to be vulnerable in order to lead, because you are gonna get blow back.
You’re gonna get people who are gonna push back on what you do. You’re gonna get people who are going to point out where maybe you mistepped in the past or where, there was a situation where maybe you didn’t handle it. And you have to be willing to. Acknowledge, that we, as Mary Beth said, that we all make mistakes, but we’re trying to learn and to do better, but still be willing.
And so be willing to take those shots that are gonna be sent your direction. in order to lead and to say in, in spite of any mistakes I made, I may have made, I’m going to, call out when things are done unethically I’m going [00:12:00] to, advise those that I’m working with on ethical ways to communicate ethical ways of doing business.
And unfortunately, sometimes that means we’re put in positions where, we have to accept that we may, may lose our position. We may have someone come after our reputation, but we really have to decide what is more important to us to be an ethical practitioner, or to be everybody’s friend, I guess is how I put it.
And sometimes, calling out unethical practices means that people may not like you as much, and you just have to be willing to accept that.
Mary Beth: Yes. And organization. Yeah, ahead. Michelle. I was just gonna mention to thank you for posting in the chat about the blog post that talks about those, ethical competency shortfalls in the classroom.
because it does go over some of that research that was released last year about very specific ethics topics, and to what degree they’re actually [00:13:00] being covered in public relations, collegiate, academic classrooms versus how much they’re valued by, the academic community versus how much they’re valued by practitioners or employers, for example.
that research I think is very important because it does shed light in a very quantitative way, how much we’re missing the mark on students and those, that new generation coming in, having the opportunity to learn these really important topics.
Michelle: Yeah, I don’t remember it being really stressed too much, even when I went to journalism school and learned about pr.
So I don’t know, I think it’s just always gotten it’s, sometimes it falls under legal and we’ll talk a little bit about how we can work with legal on these issues too. And what I was gonna say to Jared’s comment was, I think some organizations value people who will step up and be that, that conscience or whatever word you wanna [00:14:00] use.
But I, other organizations would definitely not appreciate that. So that’s, you have to figure that out. if you wanna, work at a place that values that kind of input or not. I don’t know. Hopefully we can all have a job where, that’s valued, but we know that’s not always the case,
Jared: and I think that, is an important point. For why we need to teach students because of anybody within our profession, they’re probably the most vulnerable because when they get out into the industry and they’re trying to find a job, they’re the people that are working. ’cause they have to work.
They, they need to build up their, professional reputation they need, the income. And so when they’re stuck in these ethical situations, a lot of times it’s harder for them to stand up and say, I’m okay if I lose my job, because they can’t, afford to do it. Whereas someone who’s been in the field longer, they probably have things in place that they could go a little while without having a position.
so they’re maybe more free to be able to, make a stand on [00:15:00] those ethical questions. So I think that’s why it’s a good thing to teach students because we need to give them the tools to feel, empowered to be able to stand up and say, Hey, this isn’t the right way to do it. Because I remember as a student, when you first get into industry, you feel like, who am I to tell anybody how they should or should not be doing their job?
Michelle: yeah, I think you don’t have, you don’t always have the confidence to push back, when you’re younger and newer to the, profession. So that’s a good point. but you can always, hope to have another position lined up before you maybe speak up if you’re worried or something like that.
But I know, I know it’s not always practical,
Mary Beth: if I could just speak to that too, that the, the ethics and compliance initiative in Washington DC which is a, ethics advocacy, and think tank organization, that I’ve had the opportunity to work with. They’ve conducted global studies over many years.
One of the [00:16:00] longest running longitudinal studies in the world of corporate misconduct. They have tracked instances of how much misconduct is being reported and secondly, what the degrees of retaliation against people who report misconduct have been occurring. And they have measured quantitatively that observed misconduct has not only increased through these recent years and certainly during the pandemic, but also instances of retaliation have skyrocketed and that’s their word.
so it’s a serious issue and it’s not just serious for the PR industry, but across management and certainly middle management disciplines where middle managers are so very often the first one to really observe these things, but they don’t have the power to be able to report and not feel like they could be retaliated against.
Michelle: Yep. Yeah. I think this [00:17:00] leads into the next question that we are going to talk about here for a few minutes. It’s really okay, so you’re in a situation, with a client, for us that, are consultants or if you’re in a, job, a full-time job working, in your boss or management, ask you to do something that’s unethical, what’s the best way to handle that?
And do we need to first figure out if it’s malicious or if it’s just they don’t understand that it’s unethical? So let’s talk about that for a minute.
Mary Beth: Okay. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, I’ll, go ahead and jump in on that and just simply say that I think the first step is gathering facts about really what is underpinning what you perceive to be unethical about the situation.
sometimes things can be, I. rooted in misunderstanding or miscommunication. And so you don’t wanna have a knee jerk reaction to something that in fact may not be an [00:18:00] ethical misstep, but something that someone just didn’t think through correctly, or that is easily fixable. But once you have crossed that, that measure to determine, okay, we are dealing with an ethics situation.
One of the best ways to push back on it in an objective manner is to pull out a code of ethics, whether it’s in the PR industry or whether it’s in the industry or discipline that the person you’re dealing with operates within. So it could be a legal person, an HR person, a a CEO operations person, but pull out an ethics code that speaks to the generic kind of scenario that you’re dealing with, and just show them, Hey, what you’re asking me to do here is unethical, and it’s right here in writing.
so being able to come back to someone to just gently educate them about, what you’re asking me to do has very bad implications, and we don’t [00:19:00] want to deal with the fallout of this decision that you’re asking me to undertake. And I think having that backup, that’s why ethics codes are actually very valuable.
they get very often dismissed as irrelevant, but in point of fact, they can be incredibly valuable and helpful in providing that backup that you need. That ammunition that you need to push back in a way that is deemed credible and valid.
Jared: No, I agree. Oh, go ahead Michelle.
Michelle: No, I’m just curious how many organizations actually have an ethics code?
Mary Beth: and, very often, an organization or an employer may not have an ethics code per se. They probably have a code of conduct. For employees that may or may not deal with the situation. I was speaking more so about an industry ethics code. Okay. From an industry association or an industry body, or even like an ethics and compliance initiative [00:20:00] like I just mentioned, that’s out of Washington.
They have a lot of, ethical best practice documents that really speak to so many different scenarios that can rear their heads and organizations.
Jared: And I think it’s also helpful for if, a PR practitioner belongs to one of these associations, some of them, not all of them, but some of them, there are actual, repercussions if you are, not following their ES ethical guidelines.
You could be, removed from the association, things like that. So I think that’s also helpful when showing a client, a, boss, whatever it may be to say, not only is it an ethical, but I, I. Could actually be harmed in practicing, my profession by doing this because it’s held to that level.
Now, I know not all associations, follow those guidelines. Some, have ethical, sorry, what’s the word I’m thinking of? guidelines, I guess for practitioners, but they don’t really, there’s no [00:21:00] really repercussions if someone isn’t practicing ethically. but I think that’s one of the important reasons why there should be, teeth to ethical, guidelines is so that we can then use them when we’re talking to our bosses and to clients to say, Hey, these aren’t just suggestions, but these are actually things that I have to, as a PR professional to follow.
very similar to, lawyers, they have ethical guidelines that they have to follow, and if not, they can be brought before the bar and they could lose their license. so for me personally, I, wish and hope at some point in the future that we have a little more meat to some of our association guidelines than what we currently do.
but I think it would be very helpful, when that happens.
Michelle: I was thinking how it’s similar to the legal profession, but, we don’t have quite the f the structure, the framework there that, that they have. Okay.
Jared: go ahead. I was gonna say too, Michelle, I’ve had a couple instances, I know we’ve [00:22:00] talked about this before in my own career, where I was asked to do, on one hand, it was something that was outright ethical.
On the other hand, it was something that depending on, I guess your viewpoint could maybe not be seen as unethical. But, I think to Marybeth’s point, the first thing you have to do is use it as a teachable moment to talk to, whether it’s a client or your boss to say, okay, here’s why I think this is unethical.
Here’s why. I think, we’re making the wrong decision for the simple fact of if maybe it’s just an, a misunderstanding on their part. You can teach them and help them, and they, and hopefully they’ll see that and then be able to course correct. it’ll also let you know that if it’s not just a misunderstanding, but they’re fully aware that it could be seen as unethical and they don’t care, then that then gives you your path forward of, as a practitioner, am I going to say, this is just what I’m being asked to do in my job, or am I gonna stand up for what I believe in and either leave the position, [00:23:00] or to some extent, depending on how, I guess grand, the unethical or the ethical lapse is to become a whistleblower.
but yeah, to Mary Beth’s point, I think it’s definitely something to always use as a teachable moment first, and then from there, stand up for what you really believe in.
Mary Beth: Thi this goes to issues of culture in such a big way. we very often talk about the importance of understanding what kind of culture you’re joining when you take on a new job.
just as you may be, you’re going to be interviewed during, an opportunity to look at a new position. You also need to be interviewing the organization and asking questions about organizational culture. Also be reading what kinds of past media coverage has a company received? Have they been accused of?
Legal or other types of compliance failures in the past, you’ve got to [00:24:00] do your homework before joining a company and hopefully you aren’t going to be caught blindsided after you’ve invested a lot in your job and in your position to suddenly wake up one day and realize, wow, I’m working for a company that’s extremely compromised and now they’re trying to compromise me.
And my ethics as a practitioner by, capitulating to conduct that in fact is it’s not only gonna get the company in more trouble, it’s going to get me in trouble. these are the very critical issues that PR practitioners have to be thinking about when they’re weighing these decisions.
Jared: And, I think too, if you don’t mind me just jumping back in, Michelle, I think too, understanding that if you work for a company that does, business globally. Ethics can be a little different depending on what country you’re practicing in. I know we talked about this, before, but there are Asian countries where it is the norm to pay for media placement, to have [00:25:00] articles written about your company or the work you’re doing.
And that is the norm. That’s what everyone does. It’s really the only way it can be done. Where here in the US we would see that as highly unethical to pay for, positive coverage for your company. So to Marybeth’s point, again, it’s really understanding not only the company culture you’re working for, but also the cultures in which your company will be working.
Michelle: That’s a very good point. And we did talk a little bit about, ahead, of this, this live stream. We talked a little bit about, paid versus earned and how that line is sometimes blurry. And so that could be a whole topic all on its own and maybe we’ll get back to that in a little bit. So we’ll see.
so let’s talk about now. So say a company’s interested in putting together some guidelines, what are the best, practices? Are there criteria they should follow? What’s your advice on that?
Mary Beth: going back to [00:26:00] ECI, the Ethics and Compliance Initiative in Washington, and also there’s another organization in, the UK known as the Institute of for Business Ethics.
Both of those organizations, and there are some others too, but those are my two go-to organizations. but they are a wealth of best practice. If you’re starting from scratch, if you’re starting from square one in trying to develop a code of conduct or a code of. More universal ethics for your organization.
They have some extremely good resources to help you get that process started. and two, one of the things that I think is very often under overlooked in the process is it really engaging your full workforce. I think that starting out with some focus groups and some employee surveys to ascertain what kinds of scenarios are employees encountering, making sure that any [00:27:00] kinds of surveys obviously are anonymous and, provide that psychological safety for employees to be able to speak openly about maybe things that they’ve seen or experienced.
but it can, that can provide for you a very good starting point to understand what are the ethical challenges or issues that your business and your industry. Are that you’re confronting and maybe also do some research about peer institutions or organizations, competitors. What are some of the crises they’ve encountered that maybe had ethical lapses or ethical underpinnings to them where you can learn from their mistakes?
all of that can help inform what your ethics code should include, in terms of provisions and, also how you need to, educate and promote it. The worst thing you can do is create an ethics code and then it, you put it up on a shelf and nobody ever sees it again. so it needs to be a [00:28:00] living document that’s posted everywhere and that you actually have.
Engaged conversations throughout the course of the year. To, to Jared’s comment earlier about ethics should be an evergreen issue. it should be celebrated and recognized every month of the year, not just in September for the PR industry. that’s where I would start is just some research and some, honest conversations internally.
Jared: Sorry. I was just gonna add, I think too, for not only our profession, but even looking at, the business, Industry itself. I think looking at the history of public relations, looking at what other practitioners have done, for, I don’t know, the last hundred years or more of how they dealt with different crises or issues that came up within businesses.
But there’s a wealth of kind of information and, as they say, there’s nothing new under the sun. So I’m sure if, it’s a question that we’re having [00:29:00] now, someone’s had that question before. And, I’ll put a little plugin, if you don’t mind, but there is a museum of PR in New York that I, work with readily, and there are a wealth of information on just the history of PR and the different, ethical questions or, conduct that PR professionals may find themselves in.
one story I always like to tell people is, Edward Bernas, we, we all learn about him when, we’re in college. But he did the one, campaign where he got, women to smoke as part of like women’s lib and, He, was working for the cigarette company at the time and he was trying to up their sales and so he, he turned women smoking cigarettes.
He called them torches of freedom. So he, and this is something that many people learn about in, in PR class, but what I find interesting is the founders of the museum actually knew him. They were friends with him and he said out, out of all his work, that was his one regret, that campaign. ’cause he realized the ethical issues that [00:30:00] came from it because that actually was when, the rise in women smoking took off.
And I, if I’m remembering correctly, his own wife died of lung cancer. And so that really hit home for him of just at the time. No one was really thinking about it as an ethical question. He was just trying to help the company he was working for, increase their sales. So I say that all to say, throughout the history of our profession, there’s been those types of questions and those situations.
And so just looking back and studying those can really help you think through, questions that you may have to answer when it comes to ethics.
Michelle: And I think right now we have in the news every day it seems like Boeing as the prime example of, there’s no protection for those whistleblowers.
And it’s serious. it’s a serious situation over there. And so I think that is gonna be a case study for the ages on, a number of fronts. But, that should be something right, that [00:31:00] should be in your, in your code of ethics protection for whistleblowers.
Mary Beth: It, absolutely should be.
And yet there is not a single ethics code in the PR industry that we evaluated through our research efforts a couple of years ago. And we evaluated 24 codes in the PR industry globally. Not one of them had whistleblower protection or an anti-retaliation in them. Any provisions for that? when we talk about the Boeing example, and it’s so interesting.
I just came back a number of weeks, weeks ago from the National Whistleblower Center. There’s a National Whistleblower Day on, July 30th, and I was able to attend that event and a whistleblower one. The several from Boeing was actually there speaking. certainly there have been a few whistleblowers that, have sadly passed away.
in [00:32:00] the past year. There’s, I believe that there’s been two and it’s all shrouded in mystery, unfortunately, which raises all kinds of questions. But, when, we talk about, whistleblowers who end up taking their own lives, sadly, we have to acknowledge the psychological toll that being a whistleblower can take.
If you are on the receiving end of massive retaliation, that destroys your career, a hard earned career for most people. and destroys your sense of community with your coworkers, even outside of that community destroys your livelihood. they’re, these repercussions are very, serious. And the fact that we have these.
ethics codes, but they don’t provide any psychological, safety mechanisms for reporters of misconduct to be able to do the right thing and speak up. It’s, at this point, it’s [00:33:00] becoming a travesty that we don’t have this, it is such a gaping omission in ethics codes that it’s, really becoming embarrassing.
I think it’s embarrassing that the PR industry still does not have any of these provisions yet. I, I’ve been shouting from the rooftop about it for some years now, and, I, I’m not, quite sure why folks aren’t really on, on the uptake with that, but I’m, dedicated to continuing to advocate for this because, retaliation, as I said, can be psychologically and just your emotional wellness, and we talk about mental wellness and health being so important, especially post pandemic.
for, those who call out misconduct, the, consequences can be extremely harsh and unfair.
Michelle: Yes. Yep. Yeah, Boeing is just, I know there’s, what else can you say [00:34:00] about it? It’s, it’s, scary. it’s terrifying really to watch what’s going on. So this all needs to be out in the open.
And again, we know, we talked about some reasons why people don’t wanna talk about it, but we need to be talking. So thank you, both for, bringing it out there, getting it out there. So let’s talk for a minute about, we mentioned the legal team, a couple of times, and I think it’s really important, for pr I think sometimes the attitude toward legal from PR folks that I’ve encountered is they just slow us down.
we are gonna try to skirt, as much as we can. And it’s really, it’s better to look at them like a partner because they’re trying to protect the organization, the company that you’re working with, and when you can work together with them. And I think that this is an example of an area where, the two of us could work together, to really put these, issues to the forefront.[00:35:00]
Jared: Yeah, I’m one of the people that, I remember again when I was in college, you’re taught that, when you get into an organization that kind of, the PR team, the legal team are always gonna be at battle. And, PR team is always trying to communicate and the legal team is trying to keep you from communicating.
And I will say once I got into the industry, I found that can be the case sometimes, but at least in my career, I found that to be the opposite. I have worked with legal teams in some of the organizations I’ve been in, and it’s been some of the most rewarding relationships. if you, if an organization has a good legal team, a good lawyer, you have to remember they’re thinking strategically, which is what we as PR people should be doing.
they’re, thinking 3, 4, 5 steps ahead of what they’re working on now of what could happen, what. by saying this, what is gonna, what is gonna be triggered on the legal side of things, and we should be doing that on the communication side. So I think I learned a lot from the legal teams I worked with, and I think it actually made me a [00:36:00] better PR practitioner.
It made me think, more concisely and strategically in all of my communication and my writing. so I, agree with what you’re saying. I think it’s very important as PR practitioners that we forge those relationships with the legal team and work closely with them. now of course, you’re going to have those times when, because legal is trying to protect, the reputation and the business itself, that maybe you may not fully agree with the strategy moving forward, or you may want to be a little more open and transparent than what they’re asking you to be.
but again, I found if you’ve built that relationship before those situations happen, you’re able to have a conversation and be able to come to a compromise where you are being. Fully transparent, but yet also, how would I say this? Also being mindful of the legal ramifications of the communication as well.
so again, I think forging that relationship is really the most important [00:37:00] thing, so that you both understand what the other is trying to do and that you can work together.
Mary Beth: I, agree wholeheartedly with that. And here’s the difference in the legal team is dealing with a court of law in pr it’s the court of public opinion.
And those two areas, have their, some of their own unique interests in terms of making sure there’s integrity and information flow and integrity in the process. But some of those, process elements are very different. And so they motivate attorneys to want to stifle information flow. Yet it, the kinds of considerations that public relations people are dealing with, to the extent that we can be advocating for disclosure and transparency that engenders public trust is incredibly important.
So we’re in this duality here that we have to deal with both sides of [00:38:00] that, the court of law and the court of public opinion, and try to bridge that gap as effectively as possible. And, it really does separate the pr prac, the PR practitioners from, are you a tactician or are you a strategist?
Tacticians are only going to be interested in what’s right in front of their face at the, at that very moment. A strategist, as Jared mentioned, is going to be thinking many steps ahead. And that is the mindset of an attorney generally. They’re always going to be thinking, okay. We can release this information now, but six months from now when we’re sitting in court, how is this gonna come back on us if it’s revealed that it was disclosed to the media, for example.
there has to be, a discussion of perceived equals and if the attorneys or the, I guess the legal counsel does not perceive that they are dealing with an equal when [00:39:00] they are speaking with a PR counsel on the other side of the table who’s also trying to advise the CEO about what to do.
You’re going to have a, just a lot of conflict there. And, and it’s, just something where we have to bring our a game to that table every time.
Jared: Yeah. Two for lawyers who have worked on really high profile cases, they understand that, as Mary Beth said, the court of public opinion as well as the legal opinion.
and I have to be careful what I say here ’cause I did, as we all know, I signed an NDA, but I did have a client that was going through a high profile legal case, and I got to do, you know what? We term as litigation PR, where the, his lawyer would sit down and we talk through the legal strategy because he understood that the legal, strategy was going to affect public opinion for this, industry leader, but also understood that the public opinion that we were working on could also have an effect on his legal strategy.[00:40:00]
And so it was really fun, fun and interesting. I say fun for me, probably not for the gentleman that I was working for, but fun just to see the different aspects of both sides and to work with a legal team that understood that they, do have some synergy and that they do come together and they’re both important.
Michelle: because I think sometimes I think PR can almost be intimidated by the legal side of things. I don’t know if it’s just me, but sometimes I feel they, I don’t know. It, once you get comfortable with it, I think it makes a big difference. But again, if you’re newer, younger, and you’re, career, you might not go in there wow, I can go to toe with the legal team.
It’s more like just, I think having a respect for what each is trying to accomplish and of course what’s in the court of public opinion can influence, outcomes if it goes to a jury trial for example, or, there’s just all kinds of things and you don’t think about those things necessarily.
Although I think [00:41:00] I took a journalism law class and I know, some of those things, but you don’t think about it, all day every day like a, an attorney would. So I think it’s both bring important things to the table. and I’ll say so, so
Mary Beth: I think that, attorneys, I’m sorry, go ahead.
Jared: No, I’m just gonna say real quickly, I’ve actually met some, recently some PR students who are actually going to law school afterwards.
Oh, yeah. so that they have that dual, they have a law degree, but they’re also practicing pr. So for anyone who’s interested, I would say that would be a great path to take.
Michelle: that’s what I always thought I would do if I went back. I’m like, I would, think I would go to law school.
I, don’t know, maybe there’s a Yeah. Synergy there that we don’t understand fully. I don’t know.
Mary Beth: I think that it’s interesting that attorneys are most interested in what they, can prove and PR people are, have to also be much more concerned about what people perceive. Whether that’s [00:42:00] based on provable fact or not.
So there is that just I think, larger universe of information that in PR we’re far more concerned about. Because an attorney can go into a court of law and win a lawsuit for, a company that’s been in crisis for say two or three years. But what good is that going to do if the company has already been driven out of business because of the, horrible reputational hits they’ve taken due to perceptions, whether accurate or inaccurate.
and, those jobs are already lost. they, they can’t pay their legal bills and everything else. So there, there has to be voice, I think for PR and for that perceptual end of things to be managed in a logical. Ethical way.
Michelle: Ethical way. Yeah. Perception is reality. So we know that whether or not something is really true, if that’s what people are perceiving, that [00:43:00] can be that’s it.
a lot of times, rightly or wrongly, that can be the deciding factors. So yeah. Let’s talk about, something that we do hear probably too much about is ai. AI and pr and, I wanna talk a little bit about the ethical use of AI and pr. we don’t have to get into specifics per se, but I do think you had some thoughts and, I thought that would be valuable just to talk about for a few minutes.
Jared: I’ll let you go ahead, Mary Beth, I know you have a lot of thoughts on this.
Mary Beth: Oh, I did wanna share of course, that, I’ve been involved with the International Communications Consultancy Organization, eco, which is based in the uk. It’s a, group of, many public relations agencies and firms, consultancies around the world.
And, eco developed the Warsaw [00:44:00] Principles last year in OC October of last year. It was when its annual summit was in Warsaw, Poland, and, and many thanks have to go to Christina for Guard, in, Finland who really, was the driving force behind helping to develop these. But they can be found, online.
And Michelle, I think you included them in the notes, or in the comments up there right now, can easily find that. Yeah, they’re easily locatable online on the Eco PR website, ICCO pr. And but I think at the core of it, I think that it’s truly important for the public relations industry to get over its tech phobias.
And there are many, I think that just as there’s been, the running joke in PR has always been, there’s been a math phobia and, a phobia about things like understanding financials and all of that, which has been extremely detrimental to our [00:45:00] industry achieving credibility, in C-suite and boardroom functions, sadly, but.
These days, it’s also translatable to the technology side. And that doesn’t mean you have to have a degree in coding or you have to have, extremely specialized technical knowledge. But it does mean that you have to have a comfort level in interacting with those, in the technology sphere who are developing technological solutions for companies, for your employer or for your clients, so that you can understand and have really very candid conversations to push back on them.
If those technology solutions are developed without an ethical lens. At the forefront, and I don’t mean just as part of the conversation, I mean at the forefront of safeguarding information, of using information in ethical ways and ways that are disclosed to the client, the end user. [00:46:00] all of these elements of our existing ethics codes and ethics tenants need to just simply be applied to the processes by which technology is being employed by our companies and by our clients.
So just becoming educated on those elements is very important for those of us in the PR industry. We cannot just be sitting off to the side and not engaging in these conversations or thinking, oh, that’s somebody else’s job. It’s not something for me to have to deal with until a crisis happens because of it.
And then, I’m playing, editorial janitorial service on trying to clean up the, PR mess from it. the biggest role that we can have in PR is to prevent a crisis before it can ever happen. And so if we’re going to do that in this day and age, we have to have a very conversant [00:47:00] skillset In being able to articulate the ethical implications of how technology is being utilized.
Michelle: I agree. Go ahead.
Jared: I was just say, I wholeheartedly agree and just understanding, again, talking about that, that strategic fo focus is just looking at where these technologies could take us, what ethical questions could come up, what, where could people use them?
And it could go wrong. I remember, many years ago sitting through a, a lunch and learn about AI and ethics, and I don’t remember all the details, but I remember the speaker had brought up one of the, larger, tech companies, I don’t know if it was Yahoo, one of them years and years ago before AI became a big thing, had created this AI that, Would learn it from, I believe it was Twitter, and would send out its own tweets and it would learn from responses and things that people said. And what they didn’t realize is it, [00:48:00] as we all know, especially on things like Twitter. But as it would learn, people would come on and make remarks or make comments.
Some of them racist, some of them just mean whatever they might be. And so the AI started to learn those things and after a while the AI started to tweet out the same types of things. ’cause it was learning from the people that were interacting with it. And so I think that started to really open up the question of AI is only as good as the input that’s put into it.
So again, it’s, looking at our own ethics, it’s looking at the ethics of the company, who’s using the ai because what we teach it is what it’s gonna then Throw back out at us. and I think too, just a lot of it, ethics in general, but even with ai, I think a lot of it comes back to common sense.
when I teach students, one of the first things they ask me is, do you care if we use ai, in your class? And I always tell ’em, I said, it depends on how you’re using it and use, use your common sense if you know you’re trying to write a term [00:49:00] paper and you want, you’re having trouble, you’re having writer’s block and you want to ask the question of, what, are the main questions that people are asking about this topic?
Or if you’ve written a paragraph and you’re using Grammarly to say, how could I say this better? I don’t think that’s an issue. Now, if you’re asking ai, write me a 10 page term paper and you let it write it, and that’s what you hand in. Okay. Now we have an ethical question, but I think people’s common sense, we know having something write a paper, you’re meant to write.
We all know. there may be people that’ll push back that common sense, tug in their gut and will turn in something like that. But we all know that’s wrong. So again, I think it just comes down to that common sense to listen to your gut. If you have questions about what I’m doing or how I’m using this ai, is it ethical?
I. Chances are if you take a step back, you’re gonna find it probably is. and, again, I think at times we’ve lost some of that common sense, but I think if we just get back to that, it would help us in a lot of these [00:50:00] areas.
Michelle: People aren’t gonna do that though, Jerry.
Jared: I know. I know.
Michelle: They don’t wanna stop and be thoughtful.
There’s no thinking, there’s no common sense in a lot of cases. I’m not gonna say that across the board, but we do, we see it. And I, that’s what is troubling about it to me. It’s not that we should never use it, of course, I think we probably all use products. even my Gmail has AI that will give me suggested, rephrasing of sentences and things.
But, it’s, a different, I think we all, probably a lot of us understand, again, like the line is there and maybe we just don’t wanna, recognize it or, admit that we, know that
Jared: To Mary Beth Point too. We, can’t be afraid of it. And actually, if we take a step back and think about it, we’ve been using AI for a long time.
We just called it something different. And we’ve all gotten used to it. No one even thinks about it being ai. But now, because this topic is top of mind for everyone, AI has become a much [00:51:00] bigger, of, a thing that we’re using. It’s starting to get scary to people, but really, we’ve been carrying a AI around in our pockets for a long time, just on our cell phone.
Yeah.
Mary Beth: Yeah. And there are four words that I would ask every public relations practitioner and student as well to commit to memory. And it’s these four words. Garbage in, garbage out.
Jared: Yes.
Mary Beth: If you feed something a bunch of garbage, even if you think it’s under the auspices of it’s going to spit something back out to you that makes sense or that is factually correct, you may be sadly mistaken.
And this is, and, just to give a little bit of a, comparison, there are a lot of organizations out there that, for example, say they’ve been, they’ve received a clean audit, but if that audit has been based on financials that were created in a way where it was faulty. [00:52:00] Financial practices or financial data that were fed into the process and the process itself wasn’t part of the audit.
Also, you’re also going to get a clean audit based on a bunch of garbage. So it’s the same thing, it’s the same principle. So we have to be in public relations, we have to be poking holes in things. We have to be critically discerning. Is the information that we are gathering here, that we’re taking on face value, accurate, honest, developed with good intent?
And does it pass the smell test? Because in a lot of cases, if we will just apply that critical lens, we will find that Wow. We should not be relying on this information or wow, we should not be relying on this stamp, this rubber stamp of approval. it’s, a huge part of what’s driving disinformation nowadays is the fact that I think too many of us as information consumers, [00:53:00] or even information gatekeepers in some respects, are just taking on face value what we’re handed and we’re not applying discernment to it.
Jared: Yeah, I agree.
Michelle: Yeah. There are very thoughtful practitioners and then there are people that just wanna get it done and just, just, they wanna just spam on a pitch or they don’t wanna stop and think about what the ethics are. They don’t want, there’s just, I don’t know, I guess every profession has both, but it bugs me
Jared: I, think that’s a big problem even in pr is people want the speed of things. how often do we hear, we all three of us know this in pr. When you’re doing inter media relations campaign and you’re reaching out to reporters, it sometimes can take months of conversation before anything’s ever written, if at all.
And then you have these companies, you guys probably get the same span emails [00:54:00] I do that say, Hey, come work with us. We’re a PR company. We guarantee you coverage and this, that, and the other. And people will go for it because it’s the speed. They want it fast. And to me, the speed is where you get into the unethical questions.
If you’re trying to rush through something, you’re gonna misstep. And so people have gotta understand, we’ve gotta take a step back, realize there’s a process, realize it’s about building relationships. as my parents used to always say when I was a kid, Rome wasn’t built in the day. It takes some time and we have to be okay with that time sometimes.
Yeah.
Mary Beth: Yeah. Public relations is not a widget business. We are not creating, we’re not stamping out cookie cutter PR product. This is not how public relations works. All PR work, all good PR work is custom. It is custom, and it is based on the proprietary knowledge of the client. It is based on the creativity and the intellectual capacity of the public relations [00:55:00] executive to take that proprietary content and craft something unique, to connect with unique stakeholder audiences and build unique brand relationships.
This is not something that can you press a button and you just, voila, we’ve got great pr, this and that’s part of the education process. I think our industry has done a woeful job in educating business. decision makers and business executives about really what public relations is and what it is not.
We are not in a widget business and we’ve got to people in our industry who are pretending like we are just should not be in our business. We don’t understand it, and they’re not doing right by their client when they do that.
Michelle: and it’s scary because, I, of course I always speak at it, but against PR scams and AI has just made it so much worse.
And then they will email your [00:56:00] clients and then sometimes clients will come to you as their consultant and say, Hey, I got this email. What about this? And I think, I’ve trained by clients to know, and I think a lot of ’em just, it’s very obvious, you don’t really need to be trained.
It just stands out as something, that’s not above board. But it’s just the fact that somebody is paying and buying into what they’re selling. So that’s a whole, again, that we could go on about that for a long time. But that’s definitely, unethical.
Jared: and I agree with Mary Beth.
outside of kind of the ethics piece that I think is something very important for our industry, I think the advocacy piece is, the other thing that we don’t give enough, time to is that we don’t talk about what it is that we do and don’t do. I forget how many years ago, it was probably six or seven Golan, did a whole campaign where they went back to saying, we do pr.
Because people had tried to get away from saying they’re public relations practitioners because of some of the [00:57:00] bad actors, and started saying, we’re, corporate communicators, we’re social media managers, which really, we all know that all falls under pr, but people were so tired of fighting back against some of the negative stereotypes that they just started to change what it is that they’re, they were doing.
And I applaud go for that campaign because I think that’s what we all should be doing. Stop changing kind of the title of what we do. We’re all public relations practitioners and let’s change people’s perception of what we do. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be sitting down with my family watching a television show or something, and PR is always talked about in a negative light.
someone does something, illegal or unethical. Oh, we need a PR campaign and it drives me nuts. And so I’m constantly, tweeting out about it or talking about it because. Until we get the conversation to change about what it is we’re doing, the perception’s not gonna change. So I think we need to focus on ethics and then we need to focus on that add advocacy piece.
Michelle: Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
Mary Beth: it’s, the same thing. It’s the [00:58:00] same thing with, focusing on organizational behavior before you can focus on organizational messaging because any kind of messaging campaign that’s simply a whitewash or a greenwash or whatever it is over organizational behavior that’s indefensible, it’s never going to achieve resonance because people are just, the, audience is just too savvy and, they will discern through all of that.
And it’s unethical to begin with to be communicating messages that are not in lockstep with organizational values and behavior. and that, that’s a good, very good point, Jared.
Michelle: Yep. I think that’s a good point to end on, because we’re right at our hour. So I don’t know if you have any final thoughts, but, I wanna point out the community PR ethics, community PR ethics month is in September.
It’s a great time to be talking about this, and if you need like an excuse, a reason to go to your [00:59:00] boss or your management and talk about this and come up with some, guidelines, this would be a great time and you can show them all about it online and, how, it really matters. especially now. I think more now more than ever.
Jared: and I don’t wanna necessarily speak for, Mary Beth, but I’ll speak for myself and also for the ethics community, for anyone who’s watching or, watches this on playback, if you feel like you have an ethics question or something that you’re dealing with and you just need, feedback or someone to, to validate your thinking, come to the community, share your questions, reach out to one of us.
And I know I, and I’m sure Mary Beth would be very happy to. share our, I hate to use the word wisdom, but maybe our experience, things that we’ve gone through to help, with those ethical questions.
Mary Beth: I was gonna say lessons learned the hard way. There you go. Thank you. That’s all part of it.
Michelle: I’m gonna put your
Mary Beth: white paper. Thank you [01:00:00] Michelle, so much for this opportunity.
Michelle: Yep. I’m, I appreciate you both very much. I’m putting the white paper up because I don’t know if I put that link up. There’s a lot of great links in the comments, so hopefully if people are listening back at another time, they’ll check the comments for all of the, links to all of the information.
I know that, Jared and Mary Beth have done research and obviously have been engaged in this for a long time years, as long as I’ve known them. And, they are both, people I respect and, real professionals and so they’re people to trust and follow and, find them on LinkedIn too. Be sure to follow, connect and, I hope to see you in the PR ethics community and thank you so much both for being here, and I hope to see everybody back for another episode of PR Explored in the future.
Thanks so much.
Jared: Thanks, Michelle.
Mary Beth: Thanks. [01:01:00] Bye-Bye.
