Public Relations Ethics

PR ethics is the standards of behaviour; the focus on good behaviour and to maintain such standards as an individual or an organisation and potential actions that may affect well being of others or the society. Ethics revolve around morals or sometimes known as conscience (what we know is right from wrong) and positive values to uphold and maintain.

PR ethics remain to be difficult to practice. If not, there would not be many debates and discussions made about it over the years. Quite the contrary, PR ethics is considered to be an oxymoron because businesses and organisations manipulate PR to their advantage to eliminate negative impressions or create false ones to the public.

One case is the WalMarting across America which is actually setup by Edelman, a private PR company set to spin stories of visiting different WalMarts in the U.S. Although the actual visitations were done, they were not genuine and were actually written for a PR stunt/gimmick.

Tilley (2008) suggests a few ways to progress and practice ethics in PR.

Firstly, one must create opportunities of willingness to participate and practice ethics. Here are some simple ways:

1) Have the Code of Ethics noticeable in the workplace or memorising the codes to practice.

2) Appoint an ethics officer to create awareness within the organisation about the importance of ethics.

3) Start a discussion or ethics column and allow staff members to contribute to it.

4) Provide a library of ethics related materials.

5) Schedule informal ethics discussions to feedback about challenges and practices.

6) Reflect the values for a scheduled 5 minutes and think about which values can be followed the next time round and how difficult or easy it was to maintain.

Secondly, one must read about PR ethics materials to provide further thinking and discussions on how to practice it.

Thirdly, is to be skillful when dealing with situations that can practice ethics.

Additionally, one can think about these three questions posed by Virtue theorists, Deontologists and Consquentialists respectively:

"What kind of person ought I to be?"

"What are my duties?"

"How ought the world to be?"

By integrating all the three forms of theories, one can obtain a good balance of practicing ethics. Constantly reminding these questions will stimulate willingness to practice ethics. The first one is the conscience, values and character of oneself. The second question fixates a code of conduct, a proper set of job and rules to practices. The third is to feel how others will want to treat you as well.

An organisation and its individuals must create a habit to practice ethics. It is a long and hard process. Sometimes, the nature of the occupation could potentially hinder the ethics progression. However, we can also be ethical not only in the good side, but constantly remind ourselves to stray away from the negative and the bad.