I can see clearly...

... now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day. – Johnny Nash

What is a definition? According to most dictionaries it’s a series of verbiage that makes something clear, in other words not vague or general. Reviewing the current definition of public relations (PR) mentioned in Stuart Elliot’s New York Times article, public relations “helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other”. Sounds like matchmaking to me, add a fee and one may have pimping. In fact, Webster Dictionary defines a matchmaker as “a person or company that brings parties together for commercial purposes” and a pimp as “a person who solicits customers usually in return for a share of the earnings”. Sound familiar?

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is looking to redefine public relations knowing that past definitions have been vague and in light of some high profile scandals of late, it needs revamping. Maybe it should be something like: I, Lucy Cox, do solemnly swear, as a public relations professional, to honor my country, my communities, and consumers, first and foremost before client and paycheck, clear enough? Or really let’s be clear, “I, Lucy Cox, do solemnly swear, as a public relations professional, to honor my family, my need to provide, increase my portion for survival in a dog-eat-dog world before client, consumer and community”. Let’s face it; it is the American dream.

The haziness of these codes has allowed all kinds of behavior to sneak by. According to the Corbett article, Time for Resolutions; Will you Commit to PR Ethics in 2012?, the PRSA has waged war against PR firms representing dictators who suppress their people. But there still is no code addressing this practice and if there was would the New York Times have stopped their advertorial for the Sudan as described in Case 3-1 in our textbook? The Sudan insert netted the NYT 1 million dollars. What is clear is the indefinite codes that are out there need to be clearer or stop fooling us with a sense of ethics when it is not there. Checking the New York Times code of ethics for advertising, it is important to know that “ Staff members may not use Times stationery, business cards, forms or other materials for any purpose except the business of the newspaper” http://www.nytco.com/pdf/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904.pdf0 Now that is clear.

Another problem is codes of conduct are just suggestions – there is no real consequence, so one gets thrown out of a professional society, big deal. According to Elliot only 10% of PR professionals belong to a society anyway. Case study 4-D in our text says that “some maintain that ethics codes are nothing more than generalized aspirations – too vague to be of any use when specific decisions must be made. “ (Page 113) Let’s look at Chapstick’s faux pa on Facebook. After posting an advertisement depicting of a women leaning over a couch with her butt in the air looking for her chapstick, facebookers started to write negative responses to the ad. Chapstick removed the comments inciting even more criticism. According to an article written by Michael Sebastian, Caught in PR Firestorm, Chapstick Issues an Apology, when Chapstick finally addressed the public they artfully fell behind another code of conduct, Facebook’s. Chapstick is quoted as saying, “we apologize that fans have felt like their posts are being deleted and while we never intend to pull anyone’s comments off our wall, we do comply with Facebook guidelines and remove posts that use foul language, have repetitive messaging, those that are considered spam-like (multiple posts from a person within a short period of time) and are menacing to fans and employees.” http://www.prdaily.com/ Brilliant, layers of codes to hide behind, raises another problem, multiple codes and conflicting codes.

Regardless of the rationalization, deleting negative comments on Facebook about one’s product by the producers of the product is not that unethical. Consider the issue of community, are we in the business of telling half-truths to our consumers. Chapstick may argue, what is the harm? The old lies of omission philosophy, what is the harm? Consumers are being misled when is that not harm?

Corbett notes that PRSA and the FTC are monitoring various public relations practices but look more clearly, the issues being addressed have nothing to do with false advertising, misleading and half-truths. The issues are whether or not interns should be paid. An initiative established by Rosanna Fiske, chairwomen and chief executive of PRSA was established this past year to redefine the definition of PR. The exercise according to the website, http://www.prdefinition.prsa.org/, has narrowed it down to 3 definitions to consider for PR: 1) public relations is the management function of researching, engaging, communicating, and collaborating with stakeholders in an ethical manner to build mutually beneficial relationships and achieve results, 2) public relations is a strategic communication process that develops and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their key publics, and 3) public relations is the engagement between organizations and individuals to achieve mutual understanding and realize strategic goals.

Clearly, profits aka ‘mutual understanding”, mutually beneficial” are still the foundation of these proposed definitions. Only definition number 1 is clear that the relationship between a PR professional and all involved should be in an ethical arena, 1/3 better odds than we have seen in the past.

Cracking the Code

Codes have been around as long as man has been able to communicate. From Indian smoke signals to Mayan hieroglyphics to the WW2 Navajo military language and the act of breaking codes has been the focus for many explorers, enemy camps, detectives and archaeologists. What strikes me is the fact that codes are usually secret messages. For instance, Julius Caesar’s cipher, the Da Vinci Code and today’s cryptographers who write encryptions and complex algorithms are all camouflaged communications. So, if codes are secret, are “codes of conduct” really secret codes for how one should act but the truth is maybe they are just smoke screens for borderline to over the top unethical behavior?

In the case study, Tailgate Approved? The Rise and Fall of the Fan Can, Anheuser-Busch (AB) who is experiencing a decline in the sale of Bud Light, develops a marketing campaign distributing beer cans with the college colors in areas where the Universities are in order to tap into the end of season baseball and coming football tailgate crowds. The interesting ethical twists are most college age students are not of age and the “code of alcohol advertising” suggests that one not advertise in areas where less than 70% of the audience is underage. The other being the use of school colors insinuated that AB was working in collaboration with the Universities, when in fact it was not at all. Although AB’s public relations folks denied the obvious relationship between sales, school colors and the target audiences; they did agree to pull the cans when asked to do so by said Universities; the questions remains did AB violates the various codes of conducts expected of them by their industry?

There are many codes that could apply to this case. There is the code of conduct of Anheuser-Busch whose very first line says, ”to ensure prosperity and job security for our employees, we must remain profitable” (http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/nys/bud/corpgov/bud_codeofethics.pdf) Wow, at what cost I wonder? Public Relations professionals have an industry code of conduct which I read on the Public Relations Society of America website (http://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/Ethics). Public trust is the key to the code. Tell me would you trust someone who tells you that “the promotion was neither college-specific nor team-specific” when the can is orange and black and sitting on the shelves of every liquor store within 10 miles of Princeton? I Kant believe that there is no orchestrated relationship between the two. Whether these codes are helpful or not would only be a valid question if there are consequences to not meeting the codes. The public relations professional code says "emphasis on enforcement of the code has been eliminated”. Secret code for, it really does not matter what you do as long as you can get away with it?

Kant would look at the advertising campaign and most likely say, although the intention was not to sell beer to the underage students at Princeton, the act certainly supports that college students were the intended consumers knowing that 70% of college students are not of age. Aristotle may be cool with it – beer does transcend to happiness. I think he would be concerned with the lack of citizenship in the decision to roll out the campaign; fueling underage college students is not good for a community.

Cynicism aside, codes have a great way of keeping one on track, a moral check list if you will. Referring back to the American Marketing Association’s (AMA) Code of Conduct, it is clear that marketers have many different stakeholders and shareholders to consider. The case study is a great example of this and what was helpful to me was seeing the extent of who can be impacted by a simple marketing idea. The AMA codes says, “as a marketer we recognize that we not only serve our organizations but also act as stewards of society in creating, facilitating and executing the transactions that are part of the greater economy.” http://www.marketingpower.com/ It seems to me that AB had an obligation to the college underage drinkers not to target them so blatantly. But read the code again, is “greater economy” secret code for increased sales, rising stocks, and money at any cost?

Flip a Coin

I grew up in a University Town with many secrets. On one side of our house lived Svetlana, Stalin’s daughter. My guess she has a few in her closet. On the other side lived an elderly woman who was a recluse. We were used to strange interesting people. On any given Saturday night my parents would have a dinner party with the guest list of the likes of Einstein, Andy Warhol and Peter Guggenheim. But we were more fascinated with the neighbor next door. We used to wonder about her and speculate about who she was. She was always the “big secret”.

All we ever knew about her was that she was a nuclear scientist and was one of the first people to privately own a nuclear microscope. Mind you this was in the 1960’s well before Google. The information explosion mentioned in our text only relates to the last 30 years. (Page 25) Over the years we learned that my neighbor had been working for the government in the 1940’s on a top secret project. That news certainly led us to peer in the windows in the dead of night. Finally we learned, after she had passed away, that she was instrumental in the development of the H-bomb.

Here is one dilemma; she did not know it at the time when she was building the bomb what it was intended for. When she put it all together, just after the bomb dropped, well over 200,000 Japanese civilians had been killed and many more would suffer for years from radiation. From the moment she knew, she shut her door and she spent the rest of her life feeling the guilt of being responsible for such a horrific act.

But there are two heads on both sides of a wooden nickel, so flip the coin. If she knew, would she have continued her work in nuclear science? Would we have won the war? At what point as a government employee should we know what is going on in the little black bunker? If she had known or figured it out before the bomb was dropped, would she have told? Should she have told? If she told, would she have put the lives of everyone in the Pacific Rim in danger? Would the kamikazes come our way? Where they already on the way? Some of these questions, of course, we would never know the answer to. But let’s say I lived next door, and I was writing for the local town paper and I peered through the window and saw something that exposed this person as the one who invented the H-Bomb, do I tell?

But in all situations it probably a better idea to stop, drop and roll, in other words ask myself some serious questions before I jump to conclusions. Yes, my job is to report the news but what is on the other side of that coin. Our textbooks talks about “a list of qualities that define news to include consequences, accuracy, confirmation tenacity, dignity, reciprocity, sufficiency, equity, community and diversity”. (Page 35-36) How important is it to keep this secret? Is the secret in the interest of the public or the opposite? Who is going to get hurt? Who should I talk with about this? The deed is done; do I want to make her life even more miserable? What are the real facts? How can I confirm? Do I have the tenacity to follow it through? Would I be respecting all the veterans of WW2, let’s face it; they are the readers of our paper? Did the bomb bring on the surrender of Japan, was it necessary in order to get this done? Is she a hero?

Flip a coin.

And the Answer is, What is Ethics?

In the TV game Jeopardy, it’s the questions that are the right answers, not much different than the art of Ethics. In Plaisance-Chapter 2, “ethics is about getting good at asking the right questions”. Consequently, ethics is more about the questions than the answers.

In my future profession, public relations, I suspect that ethical dilemmas will be a daily event. For instance, let say I am the vice president of public relations for The American Cancer Society and my advancement people have come to me with a challenge. Mr. Morris had donated 100 million dollars of his personal fortune to fighting cancer. But here is the dilemma; Mr. Morris is of the Phillip Morris family fortune, 650 million dollars to be exact, which was accumulated by the sale of tobacco products. He wants the gift to be anonymous. The ethical questions are based on how to announce this gift knowing that the money is from the makers of cigarettes? The gift is anonymous but someone will find out sooner or later so do we tell the truth now or hold the info and hope for the best? Of course there is the whole question about taking the gift in the first place, but that ethical decision was made on a higher level, I have to announce the gift.

Just the fact it’s an anonymous gift is an ethical challenge. There was a situation at Princeton University in 2002 of a large anonymous gift that was supposedly misused leading to a loss of 100 million to the University and the exposure of the names of the donors. After an internet search on the topic, I found that many non-profits will no longer accept anonymous gifts because of the issues that can surface. There is an ethical question, someone wants to give a million dollars to Save the Children and they say no? Don’t the children have a voice here, they are hungry!

Both Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism approach to ethics, would examine the consequences. In this case if accepting the gift from a former tobacco family got out how would the public feel about that? How would people living with cancer take the news? I would have to think about the big picture, not how I felt about the gift. It would potentially save many lives. I relate to Bok’s model, it seem practical to me. First, how do I feel about it? Second, bring the experts in, others who have had to deal with similar scenarios, the Board of Directors, Doctors, and patients maybe in this case. And third, have a conversation with Mr. Morris, the President of the American Cancer Society and maybe our corporate lawyer. Questions should be explored. Does this have to be an anonymous gift? What happened if the name of the donor gets out? What are the pro and cons? I have to assume when the gift was accepted this was all done by the big guys upstairs in the suits. My issue is the announcement but one should never assume when publically representing something – I need the facts.

I would also use the Bok approach to ethical quandaries relating just to the announcement. I guess I feel that I am covered from my personal feelings about the issue because it is an anonymous gift and I did not make the decision to accept it. I would ask my team what they think and I would even approach my national association and ask on the list serve, hypothetically of course, how they would approach rolling out the gift under similar circumstances. And lastly I would talk with the decision makers and just put the pros and cons out there if this was to leak out. And have a set plan for either scenario.

I would bet it all on Double Jeopardy anytime; one straight answer is a luxury.

In class I would like to see discussion around case studies of relevant situations in the Communications field. Talking these scenarios out using the tools discussed in Chapter One of our textbook would be very helpful. I learn better from real life examples.