Digitized Thoughts

I participated for the first time this week in #pr20chat, and boy did I pick a great week to start. The topic this week was ethics. Heather Whaling, who co-mods with Justin Goldsborough, ran the show this week, and asked some really tough questions. You can click on her name above, which will take you to her blog where she’s listed the questions she asked on Tuesday night. I could do a blog post on every single one of those questions, and each one would be a monster, Bill Simmons-and-his-buddies-in-Vegas length post. Thousands of words. So, instead, I’ll focus on something I said. Hey! Don’t look at me like that! This is MY blog after all!

Photo courtesy of Primer Magazine

During the chat, I said we as public relations professionals need to hold ourselves to a higher standard of ethics, transparency and honesty than the journalists we deal with on a daily basis.  Let me expand on that.

Forgetting for a moment that the public, in general, distrusts everything about the media, it is much more likely to take a reporter’s word for something rather than a PR or marketing person. The perception of our industry is one of placing our interests ahead of those of our audiences. Because of that, we are not afforded the same luxury of being taken at our word.

We MUST be as upfront, honest and transparent as we possibly can. Generally speaking, a journalist is trusted when they write something, or report something on the air. Generally speaking, we are not. Truth be told, your reputation is the only currency that matters as a pr professional. If you are caught in a lie, covering up embarrassing details, or anything else that may harm your credibility, you’ll never gain the same level of trust with journalists, and by extension, the public, you enjoyed before.

When you were a child, what were your parents most upset about when you busted a window throwing a baseball against the side of the house when they’d told you NOT to do so many times? The fact that you broke the window? Or that you lied about doing it? If your parents are anything like mine, it’s the latter option. That’s the way the public is too. They won’t be happy that you broke the window, but they’ll respect you for being honest about it, and be more willing to trust you in the future.

All lying does is postpone the inevitable. If the embarrassing info about your client, or employer, is interesting to enough people, it will come out at some point. You might be able to control WHEN that info comes out, but make no mistake, you have no control whether or not it WILL come out. Be honest about it. You’ll be surprised how people react towards you in the future.