There is a good chance, were Aristotle alive today, he would be energetically engaged in trying to sort out where “the good” lay in the relatively new inventions of mass media, consumer markets, and public relations.
But why would we want to consult someone who slept in his clothes, would not know what to do with a newspaper let alone a computer, and never even saw a flush toilet? If ethics has forward motion, Aristotle gave it much of its initial propulsion, and progress made since builds on his thinking. In fact, some contemporary thinkers have suggested we could do worse than to return to the Aristotelian ideal in the conduct of our modern lives. Aristotle certainly did not have the last word on the ethical practice of public relations. But it is a good place to start.
So we start where Aristotle did—with the belief that the “goodness” of any endeavor is measured in terms of excellence in attaining purpose. How closely did Ellsworth, Lee, Bernays, and Page adhere to the qualities, or virtues, necessary to achieve their purpose? What are those virtues? And what was their purpose anyway?
It is worth noting here that Arthur Page seemed to have a different purpose than the other three.1 In fact, he made it pretty clear in his “job interview” that he was not interested in a “publicity job.” From the start, he considered his new position a general management position focused on helping the company fulfill its obligations to society, as well as to its customers. With the acquiescence of his boss and his board of directors, that is precisely what he did over his 20-year career. So, in large measure, the most significant ethical lessons we might draw from his experience would best wait for a later chapter.
Ellsworth, Lee, and Bernays, however, shared a common purpose. In part, it was ostensibly to inform the public about a business (respectively the phone company, coal mine owners, and an assortment of consumer brands). In some cases, it was also to persuade the public to take a particular action (eat bacon) or to believe a certain idea (telephone competition is unnecessary; the coal mine owners are treating their employees fairly; the president of Guatemala is a Communist). We will get into a fuller discussion of the purpose of public relations in later chapters. For now, we will assume these public relations pioneers had pure intentions; that is, their goal was to help the public make better decisions.
Aristotle would have approved of that purpose. He far preferred to be governed by many farmers, shepherds, and potters acting in the common interest (the “polity”) than to be ruled by any number of people acting in their own interest. The key, though, is that the polity has to be well informed in order to recognize the common interest.2
Virtue
Having stipulated pure purpose, we turn to the qualities (virtues) Aristotle would expect to see in excellent communications. Plato enumerated four cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, temperance, and courage. Aristotle, a supremely practical man, recognized that different spheres of life might require other virtues and added as many as eight to Plato’s list, including patience, friendliness, and truthfulness.
That last virtue is arguably essential in any ethical communication or relationship. Telling the truth is the very first of the so-called Page Principles, drawn from Arthur W. Page’s speeches and memos by the association of senior communications officers that bears his name.3 And not surprisingly, considering its source, it is immediately followed by “prove it with action.”
But what does it mean to tell the truth? Ivy Lee suggested that the concept is entirely subjective. One man’s truth is another man’s opinion. Facts have little objective reality; they depend entirely on interpretation. Lee might have advised his clients to tell the truth, but from that point forward, they were on their own. His hands were off the wheel.
We should emphasize here that truth is not the only virtue on which the ethics of public relations depend, but it is a good place to start because it is deceptively hard to pin down.
The Nature of Truth
Philosophers have been arguing about the nature of truth for millennia, about as long as they have been debating the existence of reality. Perhaps, the nonphilosophers among us can agree on a provisional definition: truth is conformity to facts or reality, what is termed “veracity.” But ethicist Kirk Hanson points out that, in practice, even that straightforward notion lies on a continuum with a notoriously slippery slope.4
Just below actual truth—conformance to reality—is a closely related concept: disclosed truth. Public relations people do not have to say everything they know to be truthful. Some facts are confidential; some are irrelevant; some might even be misleading if their context were misunderstood. For example, in planning layoffs, every organization is asked to prepare multiple options. Releasing all that raw information would not tell anyone anything truly useful and could lead people to the wrong conclusions. Other times, it could be needlessly damaging. When AT&T’s data networks suffered a daylong outage in 1998, the company quickly traced the problem to a technician who installed some faulty software. The New York Post wanted his name. But what purpose would releasing it have served? Management was responsible for providing the software, training technicians, and ensuring the procedures they followed were fail-safe. Fingering the technician would have been irresponsible.
But disclosed truth can also be so self-servingly selective as to be misleading. The late novelist-essayist Alan Harrington once compared public relations to flower-arranging. “Public-relations specialists make flower arrangements of the facts,” he said, “placing them so that the wilted and less attractive petals are hidden by sturdy blooms.”5 This amounts to a well-worn technique called “spinning,” which we will discuss more fully shortly.
Then there are plausible interpretations of facts. We say the glass is half full; you say it’s half empty. Technically, we are both right. We are not arguing about how much water is in the glass, just what it means. Statistics are particularly useful in buttressing one interpretation or the other. But some believe the manipulation of numbers is a whole category of lying all to itself. Mark Twain famously said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”6
It is said that “figures do not lie, but liars”—and some public relations people—“figure.” In the right hands, numbers and graphs can be manipulated to support almost any interpretation of data. For example, we can easily establish with mathematical certainty that the average human being has one testicle and one breast. A full exposition of lying with statistics is beyond this book’s intent (and its authors’ capabilities). But thankfully scholars have jumped into the breach with books of their own. Among the best is a 60-year-old classic, How to Lie with Statistics by mathematician Darrell Huff (1954/1993). He is the guy who came up with the original “gee-whiz graph,”exaggerating small differences by setting a chart’s baseline to a value greater than zero (1993 pp. 62–67). The PRSA and the United Kingdom’s Chartered Institute for Public Relations have partnered with their respective country’s leading associations of professional statisticians and data analysts to publish best practice guides for using statistics in communications.7 For more on this from a public relations perspective, see Michaelson and Stacks (2014).
Incorrect interpretations follow. For example, we know for a fact that a McDonald’s Big Mac has about half the cholesterol as a three-piece serving of KFC fried chicken (75 mg versus 145 mg). Conveniently ignoring the fact that it has almost 50 percent more calories (550 versus 320), and a third more fat (29 grams versus 19 grams), we promote its lower cholesterol and claim it is better for your heart than KFC fried chicken.
Or maybe we promote our client’s vodka as “gluten-free.” In fact, all vodka is gluten-free, despite its earlier life as a mash of barley, wheat, or rye. But we suspect that because we have highlighted it on the bottle, some celiac victims and food purists will assume it makes a difference. The Kremlin’s public relations guy in Berlin, Germany, would call all this “the tendentious presentation of facts” which is really a way of lying about lying.8
And then, of course, there are outright lies. Public relations people know they are not supposed to lie. But in a 2010 survey, while only 12 percent admitted to disseminating false information themselves, nearly three-quarters (73 percent) said they believed public relations people lie in the course of their work.9 The survey also suggests public relations practitioners have a flexible notion of lying. Just 29 percent considered withholding information morally equivalent to lying. And three quarters said public relations people have no obligation to communicate information that may damage their clients.
Truth and the Law
Some ethicists suggest we turn to the law for guidance in defining the minimal contours and limits of truthful speech. On that score, it is worth noting that the practice of public relations is one of four jobs specifically protected by the U.S. Constitution. (The others are the clergy, journalists, and lobbyists.)
It is right there in the first amendment—“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” The founding fathers had individuals in mind when they banned “abridging” free speech. And since corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution, the full range of their rights has never been entirely clear, but they have always been thought to have some of the rights individuals enjoy, such as the right to due process and the right to enter contracts. And, of course, the courts have long recognized reasonable limits on individuals’ free speech. It is not lawful, for example, to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
Beginning in the 1970s, the Supreme Court began applying first amendment rights to corporations in a series of decisions.10 The Court held that companies engage in two kinds of speech, each with its own set of rules and regulations, though this has become a murky area of the law for reasons we will soon discuss.
• “Commercial speech” is motivated by profit and proposes a commercial transaction.
• “Corporate speech,” by contrast, deals with social or political issues and seeks to affect policy or strengthen relationships.
The Supreme Court allows regulation of commercial speech if there is a substantial government interest at stake, such as protecting the public from harm, and the regulation is narrowly tailored to that purpose. So laws designed to protect the public from misleading claims are constitutional. You cannot say you are discounting your product 50 percent if you are selling it at the same old price. Of course, the law leaves plenty of room for what it terms “puffery,” which is widely perceived as merely an expression of the seller’s opinion and usually discounted as such by any prospective customers. Whether you drink Coke or not, you know there is no way to prove it is the world’s most refreshing soft drink. That is puffery and gets a free pass. Similarly, Wonder Bread can claim to build strong bodies 12 ways because it adds 12 vitamins to the dough. The rest is puffery. On the other hand, Gaines Burgers dog food once claimed it provides all the milk protein a dog needs. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) deemed that claim deceptive because dogs do not need milk protein, and it is misleading to suggest they do.
Linda Goldstein, a lawyer specializing in communications law, warns that many public relations campaigns face “heightened regulatory scrutiny” from the FTC, which wants to ensure that marketers disclose any “material connection” between themselves and anyone who endorses their products.11 “Recently, the FTC’s view of what constitutes an endorsement and what constitutes a material connection has become so restrictive,” she warns, “that even the most benign social media campaigns could be implicated.”
Goldstein cautions that encouraging customers to blog, Tweet, or post photos of a client’s products could trigger the agency’s endorsement guidelines if some kind of incentive is involved. Even offering a prize for the best post could cross the line. It is all explained in 21-page guidelines.12 But that has not stopped companies like Lord & Taylor from paying fashion bloggers to post photos of themselves in one of the retailer’s new dresses. The dresses promptly sold out and, as this was being written, the retailer had not heard from the FTC. But the bloggers were on the receiving end of so much criticism, they added retroactive “#sponsored” hashtags to their posts and the retailer itself promised to act more ethically in the future, though they termed it a “process improvement.”13
The FTC is just one of many agencies that regulate commercial speech, depending on its nature. For example, the Federal Drug Administration regulates pharmaceutical advertising to protect public safety. The Securities and Exchange Commission regulates financial communications, for example barring companies from selectively disclosing material information to favored investors.
Public relations people also have to be careful that their passion for representing their client or promoting their client’s product does not deteriorate into fraud. Under common law, fraud is misrepresentation of a material fact with the intent to deceive. It can be saying something that is not true or failing to disclose something that is important. A material fact is one that a reasonable person would depend on in making a decision. And acting with reckless disregard of the consequences can constitute intent. The person being deceived only has to show they had reason to rely on the false information and doing so resulted in injury. And you cannot use “the client made me do it” as a defense. If you help a client commit fraud, you can be found just as guilty. That is why agencies typically indemnify clients for suits arising out of the creative materials they produce, such as photo releases, while they ask clients to indemnify them for claims arising from the information they provide the agency, such as product and service claims.
Corporate Speech
By comparison, corporate speech was once thought to have greater protection than commercial speech. Because it deals with public policy issues, it was thought to constitute opinion that contributes to the free flow of information and less vulnerable to claims of being false or misleading. But in 2003, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision that seemed to erase the distinction between corporate and commercial speech.
The case had to do with a series of news releases Nike issued to rebut accusations its sneakers were made in Asian sweatshops. An activist named Mark Kasky sued Nike for false advertising. Nike responded that its views on a public issue were entitled to First Amendment protection. The local court agreed and dismissed the case, but the California Supreme Court overturned the ruling, saying Nike’s news releases were subject to false advertising laws. The United States Supreme Court initially agreed to review the case, but ultimately sent the case back to the trial court without issuing a ruling. The parties then settled out of court, leaving many people wondering if the distinction between commercial and corporate speech was still valid. On the other hand, according to a recent Harvard Law School study, “nearly half of First Amendment legal challenges now benefit business corporations and trade groups, rather than other organizations or individuals” (Coates, 2015, February 27). For example, in the 2010 Citizens United case, the Supreme Court seemed to expand corporate speech when it upheld a company’s right to run ads advocating a position on public policy or social issues, including political candidates.14 It was a controversial decision that is still being debated.
But there are even more immediate legal concerns for public relations people in the exercise of corporate or commercial speech. Defamation is the legal term for harming someone’s reputation by spreading false information about them. In print, it’s called libel; in speech, it’s slander. But whatever you call it, it is trouble. In some states, it is a criminal offense. The criteria for defamation are quite complicated, differ by jurisdiction, and apply a little differently to public personalities. But as a general rule, it is always wise to make sure the expression of an opinion is labeled as such and backed up with supporting facts.
Included in the right to privacy, which we will discuss in a later chapter, is the “right to publicity.” Although the specifics can vary from state to state, this generally concerns the appropriation of a person’s name or likeness for commercial purposes. Originally, it was designed to protect people’s privacy, but these days it is also considered a property right. If there is money to be made from someone’s likeness, that person has the right to control it. In fact, the right of publicity has even been extended to identifiable buildings and animals.
It is also illegal (and unethical) to use other people’s creative work without getting their permission. The sheer profusion of easily clicked, copied, and pasted images on the Internet makes them seem like free goods. They are not. Someone expended lots of calories and maybe even money in their creation. To claim any of it as your own is lying. The law does allow “fair use” of copyrighted material, but as attorney Kerry Gorgone put it, “You don’t get to discuss ‘fair use’ until you’ve been sued, and lawsuits are expensive.”15
Finally, public relations people can break the law—not to mention act incredibly unethically—by padding their expense accounts or filing false billable hours. That is called lying and when it leads to the receipt of unearned compensation it is another form of stealing. The former head of FleishmanHillard’s operations in Los Angeles was sentenced to federal prison for overbilling the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for the agency’s services. He had perfectly logical reasons for the way he billed the water department, but all it got him was 42 months in jail.
Truth and Public Relations
If the law defines the minimal requirements of the truth, where does that leave us in the practice of public relations? Aristotle’s notion of purpose suggests a provisional definition. Veracity—or conformance to reality—hinges on the use to which a given set of facts will be put:
In public relations, telling the truth means giving people substantially all the information a reasonable person needs to make an intelligent, voluntary decision, whether buying a company’s products, investing in it, working for it, welcoming it into their community, or supporting it in some other way.
That does not mean public relations practitioners need to give people all sides of an issue, including what opponents or competitors allege. It is fair to assume that in the free market of products and ideas, others will have an opportunity to present their side. But telling the truth does mean you can withhold material information or engage in misdirection so people ignore other points of view. If your product has side effects or the kind of flaw that might change someone’s mind about it, telling the truth requires you to reveal them. Telling the truth also means doing our very best to confirm the accuracy of the information we share. And if we discover we gave people bad information—or if they draw erroneous conclusions from what we said—we do not ignore it or cover it up. We correct it and set people straight. To do otherwise is to lie.
We explore this definition further in later chapters, but for now, consider what it means in a practical situation faced by the public relations people at Kraft Foods.
Mini-case
Kraft makes a popular baking chocolate. Sometime in 2013, many home bakers noticed the packages on grocery shelves had suddenly shrunk—from eight ounces to four. But apparently in some stores, the price stayed the same. That raised the eyebrows of the New York Times’ “Haggler” columnist, who quickly fired an e-mail to the Kraft public relations department, asking what gives.
One can only imagine what goes through your mind when an e-mail from someone identifying himself as the “Haggler” from the New York Times lands in your inbox, but Kraft’s spokeswoman was happy (and we suspect, relieved) to tell him the price should have gone down. “The suggested retail price for the four-ounce package is $2.89,” she e-mailed back, “while the suggested retail price for the old eight-ounce package was $3.89.”
Perhaps, suspecting $2.89 is not half of $3.89, the Haggler dug out his calculator and crunched the numbers discovering the price per ounce actually went up by 47 percent. Back he went to e-mail: “Isn’t this just a price increase in semi-clever disguise?” he asked. Here’s what Kraft’s spokeswoman said:
Our consumers have told us that they prefer this size over the larger size because the majority of our Baker’s recipes call for four ounces or less. The easy-break bar makes it faster to melt and easier to break apart. And they can buy only what they need for a recipe, so the product is fresher.
Fair enough, the Times’s intrepid columnist said, but why did the price go up? After a pause, Kraft replied:
Our packaging change for Baker’s Chocolate was driven by consumer research. Our consumers have told us that they prefer this size over the larger size because the majority of our Baker’s recipes call for four ounces or less.
“Ooo-kay,” the by-now exasperated reporter persisted, “I think you said that already, but did your consumers tell you to raise the price?” Finally, after an even longer pause, Kraft’s wily spokesperson said:
Our new four-ounce size of Baker’s Chocolate is competitively priced with other brands.
What the Times’ columnist wrote at this point is worth reprinting.
The reality is that for many items, production costs have been rising. Given these circumstances, a price increase is perfectly understandable and arguably inevitable. What’s odd is that few manufacturers, it seems, ever level with consumers about what might be valid reasons for higher prices.16
Kraft’s spokeswoman answered the question she wished had been asked—why did you change the size of the package—rather than the one actually posed—why did the price go up? Her answer did not have to ignore the company’s perspective. Indeed, the Haggler wondered why so many companies fail to level about it.
Media Training
No wonder some journalists believe media relations is really just a con game. Consider what one writer for the Columbia Journalism Review had to say about media training: “Media training teaches people all the fancy steps they need to answer the questions they want to answer, not those of an inquisitive reporter. The result: in too many cases, instead of shedding light, interviews cloud public discourse.”17
Indeed, most media training seems to have been inspired by a quip Henry Kissinger reputedly once made at the beginning of a news conference—“Does anyone have any questions for my answers?” It teaches spokespeople to formulate a message that serves their purpose and then to “bridge” to it no matter what they are asked. That is undoubtedly what the Baker’s chocolate spokesperson was trying to do, however unskillfully.
Ethical media training helps spokespeople communicate more clearly and in ways that contribute to public discussion. One of us wrote a short book entitled The Executive’s Guide to Handling a Press Interview early in his career. The very first tip in the book was “always tell the truth.” But that advice was not prompted by any real concern for ethics; it was based on the near certainty that few lies survive close inspection or the erosion of time. Eventually, the truth comes out. And once reporters catch you lying—or even hiding the truth—they will never trust you again (Martin, 1997).
On rereading our short guide to dealing with the media, we were gratified (and relieved) to discover it primarily emphasized techniques for getting a point across, (e.g., taking the public’s point of view, avoiding jargon, dealing with interruptions, and side-stepping traps like repeating loaded words). But it did not deal with the bane of modern-day communications—spinning—because back when our little opus was published, the word had not yet entered the lexicon. We wish it never had.
Spinning and Framing
“Spinning” is emphasizing (or deemphasizing) facts to produce a more favorable response from the spinner’s point of view. It makes bad facts look good and good facts look better. The Oxford English Dictionary dates its usage from the mid-1970s, around the time our brief tome came out and in the politically charged wake of the Watergate scandal. Spin probably derives from the practice of hitting a ball so it twists in a particular direction and, appropriately enough, it was first applied to politicians.18 But as the media paid more attention to business news, it was quickly applied to company spokespeople as well. Public relations people became known as “Spin Doctors.” Unfortunately, spinning facts so only their best side shows not only skates on the edge of lying, it is psychologically dangerous. If you shade the truth often enough, you can lose track of it entirely.
Spinning, however, is not the same as a closely related concept—framing. Framing is all about defining the context within which communication will take place (Goffman, 1974). Every thought we have and every word we express is framed in some way. Framing or context is what gives words meaning. Some truths can only be seen when they appear within the proper frame. On the other hand, spinning is usually intended to conceal truth, to direct attention away from it.
Framing can tilt discussion in a certain direction. For example, calling “estate taxes” “death taxes” takes the issue out of the realm of accounting and invites the question, “Why should I pay taxes for dying?” While that frames the issue in a particular way, it is not inherently misleading. It is simply defining the issue in favorable terms to those who would like to eliminate the tax. However, like any rhetorical device, framing can be manipulative. This is especially obvious when someone frames issues differently depending on the audience being addressed. For example, Republican pollster and word-maven Frank Luntz published talking points on immigration that carried two different sets of message for candidates, depending on the audience being addressed.
“While Americans are most concerned about the economic impact of illegal immigration, crime is a close second,” he told them. “Particularly in border and industrial states with heavy illegal populations, the perception of illegal immigration and increased fear of crime are closely related.” The message for general audiences then should be: “Stopping illegal immigrants at the border means less crime.” But when addressing Hispanic audiences, he warned, “Hispanic Americans reject the assertion that illegal immigration fosters a general culture of lawlessness.” So when addressing them “Talk about ‘the system’ as the problem.” Point out that if the immigration system worked better—if the border were more secure and the documentation process faster—people would be more likely to obey the laws.19
Whether such advice amounts to cynical spinning or contextual framing is open to debate. Certainly, in today’s world of 24/7 media, few politicians think what they say to one group will never reach the ears of others. But that does not mean they will not slant their remarks to their audience’s preconceived beliefs and interests, emphasizing different messages accordingly. The difference between ethical framing and unethical spinning lies in one’s intention, whether it is to reveal or hide the truth.
Secrets
The flip side of telling the truth is keeping confidences—not only those of clients or employers, which should be obvious, but also those of the media and stakeholders. Tipping a favored reporter about a story another journalist is pursuing may be a way to curry favor, but it is a form of theft that harms the reporter whose scoop you have helped steal and corrupts the free functioning of the media, which is a public good.
On the other hand, keeping secrets can lead to ethical problems of their own. Obviously, no ethical practitioner would hide wrongdoing. But public relations should have a bias toward open and trusting communications with all stakeholders. Practitioners should press clients to carefully weigh the tradeoffs between protecting sensitive data and giving stakeholders the information they legitimately need to make informed decisions. Often, the people most in the dark about an organization’s practices and performance are its own employees. But ethicist Sissela Bok (1989) has described how organizational secrecy can inhibit its employees’ judgment. Secrecy “shuts out criticism and feedback,” she wrote, “leading people to become mired down in stereotyped, unexamined, often erroneous beliefs and ways of thinking” (p. 25). The same principle applies in the larger community within which public relations practitioners seek to create meaning.
Public Relations Character
Alasdaire Macintyre (1998) suggests entering a “practice” such as public relations carries obligations that go beyond truth-telling. “To enter into a practice is to enter into a relationship not only with its contemporary practitioners,” he writes, “but also with those who have preceded us in the practice, particularly those whose achievements extended the reach of the practice to the present point” (p. 194). This suggests that character or virtue manifests in two ways—in the internal quality of the activity we are practicing (what he called its “internal good”or “goods of excellence”) and in whatever external impact it has (its “external good”or “goods of effectiveness” (Kelvin, 1998, p. 55)).
From the perspective of internal good or excellence, ethical public relations is not simply a matter of following a set of rules. It also means figuring out what kind of practitioner we want to be and developing the lifelong habits to support it. It means having the courage to stretch our capabilities to their limits, the honesty to recognize our limitations, and the humility to learn from those with greater experience. It means working to improve the overall practice of public relations as an end in itself, not simply as a means to some other goal such as greater personal stature or renown.
From the perspective of the practice’s internal excellence, truthfulness would certainly be at the top of any public relations practitioner’s list of essential virtues. But others are also important. Ethicist Robert Solomon compiled his own list of business virtues:
There are a great many virtues that are relevant to business life …. Just for a start, we have honesty, loyalty, sincerity, courage, reliability, trustworthiness, benevolence, sensitivity, helpfulness, cooperativeness, civility, decency, modesty, openness, cheerfulness, amiability, tolerance, reasonableness, tactfulness, wittiness, gracefulness, liveliness, magnanimity, persistence, prudence, resourcefulness, warmth, and hospitality (1992 pp. 317–339).
From that list of 28 virtues, which is far from exhaustive, we can select three in addition that, in our experience, have particular application to the practice of public relations:
Honesty—Honesty is an uncompromising and consistent commitment to truthfulness in word and action. It is the path to winning the trust of clients and, ultimately, of the publics they serve and on whom they depend.
Courage—Public relations people are often in the position of speaking truth to power, telling them uncomfortable facts they may not want to hear. That requires self-confidence and the courage to be the bearer of bad news or the asker of tough questions.
Persistence—Neither of us has ever been asked to lie in our professional life. We were never asked to hide or disguise the truth. But simply finding the truth was often a challenge. In a large company, information is scattered across organizations, people hoard it and dole it out as it suits their purposes, often with their own unique interpretation. It is especially difficult to distinguish what is true from what is speculative or simply wishful thinking in the heat of a crisis. Discovering the truth requires stubborn tenacity.
A public relations counselor’s job is to dig out the facts of a situation, assess their meaning, and communicate them responsibly to relevant stakeholders. A data dump is not responsible communications, nor is abdicating their interpretation to others. Effective counselors try to understand the facts from their stakeholders’ points of view so they can give them all the information they need to act intelligently and prudently.
That is not as easy as it sounds. Roger Bolton knows firsthand, having practiced public relations at the most senior levels in government and at companies such as IBM and Aetna, before becoming president of the Arthur W. Page Society. “It’s hard work,” he wrote,
“because self-delusion can easily convince an enterprise of things that aren’t really fully, objectively true, and rooting out the natural bias takes both diligence and an ability to see the world through the objective eyes of others. It also takes guts to stand up for the truth against the natural instincts of an organization to let the little lies or omissions put it in a better light than it deserves.”20
Now ask yourself, how well did Barnum, Ellsworth, Lee, and Bernays do by these standards in the situations described earlier?
Summary
From what we have learned, the ethical quality of public relations practice should be measured against standards of excellence and effectiveness, aligned in the common purpose of contributing to people’s happiness or human flourishing. If Barnum, Ellsworth, Lee, and Bernays succeeded in persuading people to do or believe something that was harmful to them, it couldn’t be ethical no matter how clever or effective their technique.
We have seen that truthfulness is a fundamental virtue in the practice of public relations. But it is also a nuanced quality. Barnum’s happy hokum skirted the edges of truthfulness but everyone was usually in on the gag. In fact, his hyperbole was part of the entertainment and arguably contributed to people’s enjoyment. Few people felt cheated even when they discovered his “Feejee Mermaid” was literally stitched together. Ellsworth, on the other hand, stepped over the bounds of truthfulness when he used advertising dollars to convince editors to run his “news stories.” The stories themselves may have been truthful, but their presence in the news columns was a sham, suggesting editors considered them worthy of readers’ attention. Ivy Lee’s concept of the truth as whatever his client believed is just as misleading. Truth is conformance to reality, not to someone’s self-interested conception of it. And Bernays’ efforts to convince women to smoke may have started as a harmless stunt, but it was ultimately detrimental to their health, which Bernays himself regretfully concluded late in his life.
In public relations, telling the truth means ensuring the veracity of the information you share (i.e., it substantially conforms to all the facts the public reasonably needs to make an intelligent, voluntary decision). Truth, so defined, is the bedrock of ethical public relations. And, as it happens, that also requires practitioners to develop virtues such as courage and persistence because ensuring the veracity of such facts is seldom easy.
But we have not completed our deep dive into the nature of truth. In the next chapter, we will explore two more characteristics of truthfulness—visibility and validity. And we will see the multifarious ways some practitioners have discovered and invented to dodge, bend, and hide the truth, starting with one of the biggest misinformation campaigns of all time—Big Tobacco’s efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to cast doubt on smoking’s harmful effects, aided and abetted by some of the nation’s leading public relations firms.
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1 Other than the 1956 interviews for Columbia University’s oral history project cited here, Page did not write a memoir. What we know of his approach to public relations must be inferred from his many speeches which are archived at Penn State College of Communications’ Arthur W. Page Center: http://comm.psu.edu/page-center/resources/other-resources/page-speeches.
2 For more on Aristotle’s views on the most practical political regime, see Book IV of Politics, which is available online at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html.
3 The Arthur W. Page Society is an association of chief communications officers of leading corporations, the CEOs of the world’s largest public relations agencies, and leading academics from the nation’s top business and communications schools. The seven Page Principles are tell the truth, prove it with action, listen to the customer, manage for tomorrow, conduct public relations as if the whole company depended on it, realize a company’s true character is expressed by its people, and remain calm, patient, and good-humored. Page himself didn’t write these principles; they were drawn and inferred from his speeches, memos, and example by the Society’s founders. See http://www.awpagesociety.com/about/the-page-principles/.
4 The “continuum of truth” is based on a presentation Kirk Hanson made to the annual meeting of the Arthur Page Society, in September 2003. Hanson is executive director of the Markula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
5 Quoted by Auletta, K. (2007, February 12). The Fixer, New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/02/12/the-fixer
6 Twain attributed the remark to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in “Chapters From My Autobiography” which appeared in the North American Review literary journal on September 7, 1906, p. 471. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19987/19987-h/19987-h.htm. The original source has never been found in Mr Disraeli’s papers, however, and it is likely Twain wrote it himself.
7 The PRSA’s guidelines are available online at http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/BusinessCase/Documents/StatisticsBestPracticesGuide.pdf. Accessed September 5, 2015. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ guidelines are at https://www.mrs.org.uk/pdf/CIPR%20MRS%20RSS%20Guidelines%20for%20using%20statistics%20in%20communications%20CIPR.pdf. Accessed September 5, 2015.
8 The Kremlin’s man in Berlin explained his country’s propaganda in these terms to Troianovski, A. (2014, August 21). Russia ramps up information war in Europe. Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/articles/russia-ramps-up-information-war-in-europe-1408675046. Accessed July 22, 2015.
9 PRWeek commissioned the survey. See Sudhaman, A. (2010, February 3). PR professionals believe ‘spin’ is entrenched in industry, survey shows. PR Week. http://www.prweek.com/article/981450/pr-professionals-believe-spin-entrenched-industry-survey-shows. Accessed July 22, 2015.
10 The most important of these decisions were Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976), First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978), and Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980).
11 Goldstein, L. (2015, December 31). Top 3 legal issues facing marketers in 2015. Wall Street Journal. http://mobile.blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/12/31/outside-voices-top-3-legal-issues-facing-marketers-in-2015/. Accessed July 22, 2015.
12 The FTC guidelines, “.com Disclosures,” were issued in March 2013 and are available online at https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-releases/ftc-staff-revises-online-advertising-disclosure-guidelines/130312dotcomdisclosures.pdf. Accessed July 22, 2015.
13 Beck, M. (2015, April 3). Did Lord & Taylor’s Instagram influencer campaign cross the line? Marketing Land. http://marketingland.com/did-lord-taylors-instagram-influencer-campaign-cross-the-line-123961. Accessed July 22, 2015.
14 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, 558 U.S. 310. (2010, January 21). http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/08-205.htm. Accessed September 9, 2015.
15 Gorgone, K. (2015, June 4). The new guide to minimizing legal risks in social media marketing. BusinessGrow.com. http://www.businessesgrow.com/2015/06/04/legal-risks-in-social-media-marketing/. Accessed July 22, 2015.
16 Segal, D. (2013, June 22). The Haggler: Halving the portion, but not the price. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/your-money/halving-the-portion-but-not-the-price.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A8%22%7D. Accessed July 22, 2015.
17 Lieberman, T. (2004, January/February). Answer the &%$#* question. Columbia Journalism Review.
18 For an interesting discussion of the etymology of “spin,” see the Oxford Word Blog at http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/09/a-journey-through-spin/
19 Luntz’s advice is in a 25-page advisory issued by his firm and published on the liberal-leaning web sire, the Daily Kos. These quotes appear on page 22–24. See: Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research. (2005, October). Respect for law & economic fairness: Illegal immigration prevention. http://images.dailykos.com/images/user/3/Luntz_frames_immigration.pdf. Accessed July 22, 2015.
20 Bolton expressed this view in the Page Society Blog, PageTurner on February 17, 2015. See “Tell the truth,”. http://www.awpagesociety.com/2015/02/tell-the-truth-021/. Accessed July 22, 2015.