Lord Tim Bell, head of the U.K.-based PR firm Bell Pottinger, thinks so.

That’s what he told a crowd gathered in Dubai for the recent IPRA Public Relations World Congress and reiterated in an excellent interview with The Holmes Report.

Lord Bell is asked why he feels that public relations has become a “lightning rod for mistrust.” His response is intriguing inasmuch as it provides a nuanced view of a much broader issue afflicting the profession: its reputation within business and society.

Lord Bell sees “no solution to [the] issue,” of public relations’ reputation challenges, he tells The Holmes Report’s Arun Sudhaman, believing that “We [have] become the lightning rod for that mistrust. It is something we have to learn to live with. That makes us an easy target for the media.”

Lord Bell would know. As we have pointed out in this blog and in other forums, he and his firm have a way of attracting unwanted attention. Last March, PRSA wrote in The London Evening Standard that Lord Bell’s assertion that “everyone is entitled to representation so long as it does not involve doing anything illegal” should be placed in further context — that a public relations professional’s work also must not involve doing anything unethical.

Lord Bell found himself in further hot water back in December when his firm was caught in a row over allegations of surreptitiously editing clients’ Wikipedia entries. The ensuing firestorm set off a slew of industry hand-wringing. But in a bit of good news, it also helped bring forward some much-needed dialogue between public relations professionals and Wikipedians about the practice and ethics of “paid advocates” editing client’s Wikipedia entries.

(PRSA is hosting a panel on the relationship between Wikipedia and public relations professionals at its Digital Impact Conference, April 2–3, in New York.)

Those issues aside, Lord Bell’s point that the public relations profession has become “the lightning rod for mistrust” is not without merit. But how much of that is the result of Lord Bell and others reaping what they sow, and how much is manufactured by the media and certain interest groups?

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PRWeek took a welcomed shot across the bow at the public relations profession with its lead editorial this month on the state of ethics in PR. Titled “Ethics mishaps of a few are a concern for the entire industry,” the piece represents a clear call to action for the profession to have an open and forthright discussion about where things stand when it comes to PR ethics.

More specifically, PRWeek’s unsigned editorial asks whether it is time for the profession to undertake a “proactive approach … that cements ethics within the very fabric of agency and in-house communications departments.”

We certainly think so. And we applaud PRWeek for shining some much-needed light on one of the profession’s most pernicious issues.

Raising the ethical standards of public relations is imperative. This is especially so in the digital age, when ethical missteps quickly gain mainstream attention and risk damaging the public’s and business community’s trust in the value of public relations.

Unfortunately, when ethical mishaps occur, what we often see is the profession engage in a swift volley of hand-wringing followed by an equally swift refusal to examine why the same issues crop up over and over. Little is accomplished but our credibility with the public and clients continues to erode.

It’s time for the profession to get serious about ethics.

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The great thing about the Internet is that the voice of a single person can carry as much weight as even the largest companies. The scary thing about the Internet, for many companies, is that the voice of a single person could potentially damage the reputation of even the largest companies.

Wherever there is a new fear, someone is going to try to make a buck off of it. The fear of a small number of disgruntled customers causing significant financial damage to a company’s business has spawned the growth of “reputation managers.” I even saw a link describing “reputation insurance,” which I felt compelled to click on just to see if it was a joke.

But companies should resist the temptation to trust their reputation to this new breed of
fear-mongering. If we are to encourage people to trust companies online, companies have to trust that the Internet community will be, on the whole, fair to them, as well.

Reputation management can easily backfire. The Financial Times reported a case of 50 employees of one of Britain’s leading PR firms making Wikipedia edits under faked identities to boost the reputation of one of their clients. I wonder what that did to the reputation of the PR firm. Representatives from PRSA inform me that it is against its Code of Ethics to omit disclosing a relationship to a client. I’m glad to hear it. Incidents such as these undermine trust in Wikipedia and other Internet communities and thus make it harder for reputable companies.

Yes, there is the occasional Internet crazy who insults companies unfairly. What should you do?

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Editor’s Note: The excerpt below is from an op-ed by PRSA Chair and CEO Rosanna M. Fiske, APR, which was published Oct. 6, 2011, in the Harvard Business Review. A full version of the opinion piece can be read here.

Last month when Netflix CEO Reed Hastings hit “send” on his now infamous “I messed up” blog post and summarily announced the formation of the “Qwikster” business to run Netflix’s DVD network, a new chapter in botched crisis communications was written.

After more than 27,000 comments, significant customer backlash, and a startling drop in the company’s stock price, we can finally step back and discern several lessons from Hastings’ communications faux pas.

Chief among them is how business leaders can use strategic communications techniques to stop adding fuel to the digital-age fires. Throwing half-hearted apologies at an issue will just exacerbate a festering problem — and people will view it as an obvious and empty attempt to quiet the masses.

Case in point: Netflix’s 11th-hour blog post and apology video. While the CEO smiled throughout the video, customers rightly questioned its intention. Overall, the communications were vague, bizarre, and left customers wondering: “Are you really apologizing to me, or are you doing this because someone else told you to?”

Here’s where this crisis situation failed: Most reputation blows require a clear, strategic message, explaining two things: (1) what went wrong, and (2) what you are doing to rectify the situation. At the same time, remember to “stay above the fray”, as corporate communications expert Paul Argenti advises in The Financial Times. That is, don’t allow feelings of regret to cloud your best communications judgment.

Read the rest in the Harvard Business Review.

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“Ethical leadership. The coin of the realm.”

That was the opening pronouncement from one of the participants in a recent meeting I attended of business and nonprofit executives discussing ethical leadership.

While everyone around the table nodded and responded positively to this highly-regarded colleague, there were no direct responses. This initial comment, however, set the tone for some internal debate, and not long into the discussion another participant stated passionately: “I can’t remember the last time I heard about a business leader tak­ing a strong stand on anything having to do with values and ethics. Everyone is concerned about shareholder return or simply survival.”

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