Public Relations Ethics

In the practitioner profile about Fiona Cassidy, she mentioned that it is important to work with people and causes that we believe in. That would be the ideal situation for any graduate, however, it is simply not the case for most people. Job opportunities would be very limited for the inexperienced graduate, and making ethical choices would almost always be dictated by the companies' management. I had a friend who was asked to work on a gay campaign but she refused to do so because of her religious beliefs and she was promptly given the sack. I believe if someone has a strong ethical conviction, they must really understand the culture and direction of the company before working for them.

When dwelling on the topic of Public Relations Ethics, my sentiments was exactly the same as the senior practitioner quoted in the chapter, 'We know exactly how to be ethical. We just need to stop talking about it and get on with it.' But as simple as that may sound, ethical and moral issues are continually being transgressed in all facets of life and PR is without exception.

However, I was rather surprised at the examples that were quoted in the book. The ethical issues mentioned were about companies not showing their identities in their online materials, which I personally felt wasn't such a big issue. I would think that cases which involve campaigns blatantly giving false information such as fake lucky draw will be more of an issue than those that were mentioned. Perhaps the author wants to demonstrate how easy it is for PR practitioner to overlook ethical issues and how easy it is for the public to be offended.