That is the main question! Now a day’s is the Banking industry that is in the spotlight due to the economical crisis or credit crunch. Next, probably, it will be the Oil industry…? There is always someone to blame about unethical decisions and practice in each profession. So why mark PR as an industry that maybe will never be ethical?
Public relations department manages the communication flow between the client, shareholders and community. They are the responsible ones to communicate any type of news, from bad to good ones. In some organisation the communication director would work with CEO drafting the company’s mission statement, strategies and vision. The PR stuff is also in charge of managing a crisis. PR is the mediator between client and public. I we cannot forget our dear friends the journalist. So maybe because the PR practitioners are in that unique position they are the targets of all criticism.
I do believe that is come to each individual to blame responsibility when they have worked unethically and not the whole industry.
PR associations have created Professional Codes of Conducts as guidelines for the PR practitioners. Academics have developed and analysed several ethical frameworks to understand the origins of approaches that practitioners could use when a dilemma arises. In an essay I wrote in the first semester I discovered that the decision-making theory was the most accepted in the PR industry. Also, PR practitioners sometimes will find their self in a case of loyalty conflicts and in those cases it is important to remember that practitioners must be responsible to society and above all public interest but without living aside clients, employees and especially oneself.
A problem with the Professional Codes of Conducts is that each association has their unique approach to make their codes effective and enforce sanctions when their members have committed unethical decisions. Therefore, having o many PR associations it is difficult to who is the conscious voice in the PR industry.
To know more about Professional Codes of Conducts please click on the following associations:
