Blog

Ashley Stephens, TriSight Contributor

As PR students and hopeful practitioners, we are often taught the importance of being responsible and credible sources of information for our clients and media outlets. This is especially significant given the unfortunate mistrust that has formed between the general public and major news publications given this new era of “fake news” in our country.

Yet, as students of this industry, we are also told the importance of representing our clients and brands to the best of our abilities, which may also include having to positively spin mishaps and lapses in judgement on their parts in a way that may not be completely honest.

As a result, when maintaining a client’s reputation conflicts with one’s own moral obligation to tell the whole truth and nothing but, how do we, as new members of this field, approach these difficult situations?

Much of the news coverage in 2018 centered on topics like the #MeToo movement, the Wells Fargo fake accounts fiasco, the alleged collusion between the Trump administration and Russia, and the Facebook data privacy scandal. What all of these issues have in common is that they stem from an overarching problem that we face in the U.S. where having a moral compass has fallen by the waste side and the boundary between what is ethically right or wrong has become blurred. And often, because of the sometimes unpleasant tasks that working in public relations and publicity require of us, we are tasked with cleaning up major social and political scandals that are becoming increasingly more frequent. Our job though, as students and therefore the future of this industry, is to focus on approaching our work with a new standard of ethics in mind. That way, we can maintain not only our credibility but also our reputation and morality as members of this field above all else.

We can strive to be more ethical PR practitioners in three major ways:

1. By ensuring transparency. Rule #1 of being a good publicist across any PR specialty is to always be honest and transparent with one’s client—be it good news or bad. This transparency needs to carry over into said client’s interactions with consumers and the public as well. Sweeping things under the rug is only effective for so long and as history has proven time and again, these secrets will eventually be uncovered in time. So, to ensure your credibility and hire-ability as a PR personnel, you have to ensure both you and your client are transparent in your communications.
2. Promoting accuracy. As mentioned previously, because we’re in the midst of an era in which some consumers are mistrustful of news outlets, it is our job to provide the public with accurate information and rise to the occasion of supplementing the information that people have previously gotten from watching/reading the news. So, now more than ever to avoid misunderstandings or miscommunications, we need to guarantee that every message we communicate, social media post we make, and fact sheet that we circulate is 100 percent factual and accurate.
3. Bridging the gap between consumers and employees. The best way to ensure that we are being ethical in our practices is by forming an open dialogue with consumers. Rather than viewing them as some kind of faceless entity, and vice versa, we need to better understand who it is we are trying to market to, inform, etc., that way we can better appeal to their needs and hold ourselves more accountable for what we are sharing with individuals who are just like us. There should be open communication between employees and consumers so that we’re more socially aware of our audiences and the impact that we have on them in the decisions we make and the information we share or withhold. Once we bridge this gap, we can better understand how to build lasting trust with consumers and that, once this trust is broken, it cannot be re-earned. So, we need to be more morally aware of the consequences of certain unethical practices and the impact they have on the public as a result.

By focusing on how we can incorporate these three approaches to more ethical PR practices into our education, we can begin paving the way for a more successful and principled future in the industry that we so love.

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Manuelita Maldonado, TriSight Contributor

I remember standing up in front of a rather small audience. As I read my speech, I nervously stared at the two men in front of me whose eyes were glued to the ceiling. Right next to them, a woman struggled to make eye contact with me while she counted the minutes until our break. The clock ticked. My tongue felt heavy, and my hands were sweating. My words were obscure, dense and incredibly boring. I wondered how I got there. Then I remembered: I was pretending to be a literature expert in a never-ending academic congress, and we all seemed to hate it.

Regardless of how much I loved reading and writing, I was unhappy with my literature major. I wanted to find a way to communicate with people at an emotional level, to engage them through exciting stories about the world. Writing long, indecipherable essays just wasn’t doing it. That’s when I found public relations.

I know my literature colleagues must be thinking I gave up my love for poetry and research, but I didn’t. As I dive more into the strategic communications world, I have started to realize how much my new professional life resembles what I learned in the past. Here is how my passion for novels and poetry intertwines with a career in public relations:

1. Research
   I spent hours at my city’s local libraries trying to find out more information about how a novel was interpreted, or what kind of poems were being published at the time. Public relations works the same way. We must stay up-to-date with the latest news and know everything about our client, our customers, investors, and other stakeholders. Even though I don’t spend as much time in the library as I did before, I have spent a significant amount of time monitoring social media channels, reading press releases, looking for the most suitable influencers and bloggers, and finding trustworthy data about the market.

2. Writing
   During four years, I wrote long academic essays on how literature became the utmost political tool in Latin America. Even though I found this topic incredibly interesting, my language was often hazy and abstract; and even my mom refused to read my papers. PR has allowed me to find simple yet accurate words to describe the world around me. I have learned to clarify and simplify complex topics by knowing my audience and using the right communication channel. Writing is still my daily bread, but now I am enjoying it with others.

3. Storytelling
   As a literature student, I learned the power that lies behind a story. Novels like ‘1984’ for instance, were written to warn us about how dangerous and coercive modern-day governments can be. In PR, stories are the bridge that connects brands and organizations with their publics. Building strong, relatable narratives is a key component of the practice of public relations.

   I still think every communications practitioner should take the time to read a novel. Reading is a way to connect with other people’s thoughts, aspirations, and emotions: an exercise in empathy. This kind of empathy is the most important step in building genuine relations with our clients and customers.