The Top Ethical Issues in Public Relations
What Exactly Is an Ethical Problem?
When an employee or business is involved in an unethical situation, both suffer. It’s a major issue that could become much worse if not addressed soon. To have made a poor choice or committed wrongdoing that has an effect on a client or anyone else associated with the company or the PR firm is an ethical issue. An ethical dilemma is a situation in which a person makes a decision that has serious consequences for themselves, the company, or their clients.
Take the case of the bank worker who is extremely worried about making his quota. In order to avoid reprimand from his management, he has asked friends to set up additional accounts for him, which they may then close. This worker is committing fraud against the company. In the long run, this could weaken the company’s credibility and drive away customers.
Ethical problems that practitioners face:
Here are some of the ethical issues facing practitioners highlighted:
1. Taking a one-sided approach to the measurement of public relations:
“I believe that regardless of how much you want your public relations campaign to be successful and maximize your return on investment, you should maintain objectivity when evaluating and reporting the results of your PR campaign. This will allow you to have the clearest and most accurate picture possible of the situation at hand. An important strategy for increasing your return on investment (ROI) and building relationships with your target audience that are advantageous to both parties is to communicate your findings in a manner that is honest, accurate, and objective while measuring the results of your PR effort. “ shares Hamza Usmani head of content at Believe Money.
2. Counseling the Leaders:
“When providing counsel to the leaders of a company, PR professionals face a significant ethical challenge. When facing leaders of the organization who are considering acting against the company’s ideals, these practitioners may need to summon a significant amount of moral fortitude. For instance, it is the responsibility of a PR practitioner to speak up if a manager is contemplating cutting the number of hours that employees work in order to prevent them from meeting the requirements for full-time employment and, as a result, from receiving benefits. In this scenario, the practitioner has a responsibility to not only bring to the attention of the leader the impending ethical breach that they are about to do, but also to bring up the question of how the press and the general public would evaluate the decision.” Says Holly, the Content Head at UNAGI Scooters.
3. Providing Information That Is Accurate:
“Practitioners in the field of public relations are routinely subjected to demands to distort or embellish the truth. For instance, if a warehouse were to catch fire, it could be tempting to downplay the seriousness of the situation by acting as though only a little amount of merchandise was destroyed. However, this would be an inaccurate representation of the situation.” Says Nely Mihaylova, a Content Executive at Scooter.guide.
If you choose to be truthful, the general public and your peers in the sector won’t be able to accuse you, at a later date, of attempting to downplay the magnitude of the loss. Instead, the PR practitioner should express the truth and stress the owner’s commitment to not only replace the goods but also establish a safer warehouse. They can also highlight the owner’s determination to bounce back. In this manner, the truth has the potential to be motivating and to create trust in the organization.
4. Disclosing private and confidential customer information:
“I believe that when your customers provide you with their comments, they are entrusting you with some of their most personal information (name, email, phone, and sometimes even date of birth and credit card number). At no point during the design or measurement stages of your public relations campaign should you ever reveal any of this information to a third party. It is unethical to share the private information of your customers, which will most likely result in a loss of their confidence.” Says Paul Somerville, Editor-in-Chief at Electric Scooter Guide.
5. Distinguished Co-Sponsors:
“When public relations professional promotes a company’s participation in social causes, charitable organizations, or fund-raising events, they must consider ethical considerations. It is the ethical responsibility of the practitioner to disclose not just the involvement of her client but also the involvement of any additional sponsors. For instance, if her client’s company sponsored a marathon and another corporation that has a questionable reputation was also involved, the announcement has to specify both of these facts.” Says Daniel Foley, Head of content at SEO-Audits.io.
6. Distinguished Co-Sponsors:
“Privacy is a human right and a legal concept. It’s hard to define, but it goes beyond the concept of personal space or property rights. Privacy is an ethical issue because it affects how people relate to each other in their everyday lives: what they share with others about themselves and what information about them is shared with third parties (like governments).” Says Andrew Cooper, Owner of Simply E-Liquid.
Privacy also impacts how businesses operate, whether they are small businesses or large corporations: from their customers’ privacy concerns when ordering online; through security measures such as encryption; down to how much data they collect on their users before selling them products or services. And finally, privacy can be impacted by government regulation.
7. Deception And Honesty:
Everyone likes a good story, especially when it’s about how they were able to get away with something. The problem is that sometimes these stories aren’t true and may even be harmful to others in some way.
“Deception is essentially lying or misleading someone into believing something that isn’t true. While deception can be used for good things like getting funding for your business or helping other people out (by giving them advice), there are times when deception is used purely for personal gain or harm—and these instances can be especially dangerous because they don’t come with warning labels attached!” says Dean Lee - Head of Marketing at Sealions.
8. Confidentiality And Anonymity:
In the world of public relations, confidentiality is the obligation to keep information private. If you have confidential information about someone and it becomes known to others, you can be sued for breach of confidence.
“Anonymity refers to when a source is not identified as the source of a statement. This happens when there’s no way for someone else (the media) to know who said what or where they got their information from — so they can’t easily connect those dots together with other news stories or details about what happened at an event like a protest march or fundraiser dinner party where everyone was wearing black shirts with buttons that read “I Support Women’s Rights.” When this happens, people will assume that all members of your organization are anonymous sources until proven otherwise; hence why many journalists use pseudonyms when quoting them in their articles!” shares Tiffany Payne, Head of Marketing at Replace Your Docs.
9. Accountability, competition, and organizational transparency:
“One of the most important things you can do as a public relations agency is to be transparent. This might seem obvious, but it’s also something that many companies forget when they form their teams and set off on their careers.” Says Leo Ye, Co-Founder, and CEO of CUBO.
He further adds “Transparency means knowing where your money comes from and how it gets used. It means making sure that any information you release is accurate, timely, and relevant to your clients' needs. It also means being accountable for all of those decisions you made in the past—and not just today or tomorrow; over time too!”
Conclusion:
If you want your company to be successful in the long run, you absolutely must have a conversation about the most pressing ethical problems that arise in public relations and how to solve those problems. The field of public relations is no exception to the rule that ethics should serve as a fundamental component of any enterprise. Make sure that you are well-versed in the pressing topics of the day and that you respond to them in an appropriate manner. Discuss the significance of upholding ethical standards inside any given firm with the members of your company’s management team. In the long term, the success of your company will be directly correlated to how transparent you are on the issue.
