Editor’s Note: To commemorate PRSA Ethics Month, PRSAY is running a month-long series of posts on important ethics issues facing the public relations profession. This is the second post in the series. An archive of ethics-related posts can be found here.

The PR profession suffers from schizophrenia. On the one hand, PR people want to be at the table making decisions and guiding strategy with the boss in good times and bad. On the other hand, many want to serve as the guiding conscience of their organizations.

So far, the record for the profession in either arena is mixed. There have been some successes, some strikeouts, some absolute no-hitters and some MIAs. That’s because business and other leaders have lost or ignored their responsibility to build and rebuild integrity as a workplace principle — a workplace guiding force.

Legislators continue to pass laws imposing extensive compliance requirements and an ever-increasing stack of regulations, restrictions and oversight requirements, in addition to internal and self-imposed monitoring. Virtually none of these can restore public, investor, employee, customer or individual trust. Restoration of trust begins by focusing and rebuilding the most essential element of an ethical reputation: integrity.

The foundation for integrity is organizational trust.

Continue reading " Chief Integrity Officer is Tailor Made for PR "

Yesterday’s appearance by James and Rupert Murdoch in front of a Parliamentary committee was one for the ages. It was remarkable not only in how rare it was for an American company to face questioning before the UK’s governing body, but in the degree to which it demonstrated just how far the company has fallen and how much work it must do to rebuild its now shattered reputation.

One thing is clear: News Corp. faces a looming reputation and credibility challenge. No matter how many times Rupert Murdoch claims that the hearing amounted to the “most humble day of my life,” he must still atone for the illegal and unethical acts of some within his company.

Furthermore, News Corp.’s disastrous response to this scandal proves that public relations should be at the top of a CEO’s skill set.

Overall, I would grade the Murdochs’ performance as satisfactory.

Continue reading " Is Restoring News Corp.’s Reputation Just Pie in the Sky? "

After reading USA Today’s expose on an alleged “whisper campaign” waged by Burson-Marsteller (B-M) on behalf of an unnamed client Facebook, which was intended to stir a privacy controversy concerning Google’s Social Circle Gmail feature, I said to myself, “Oh, no, say it isn’t so.”

PRNewser published a rundown of the ethical dilemma B-M now faces. In case you missed these stories, B-M staffers — led by CNBC ex-anchor Jim Goldman and former political columnist John Mercurio — apparently had engaged reporters and bloggers about Social Circle, claiming a variety of personal-privacy concerns about Google products and services that the company wasn’t disclosing to users.

In an email to former FTC researcher and blogger Christopher Soghoian, Mercurio solicited Soghoian’s interest in writing an op-ed along those lines, which Mercurio even offered to ghost write. At the same time, Goldman was pitching the story to USA Today.

Seemingly unbeknownst to Mercurio and Goldman, however, Soghoian posted online the full text of his email exchange with Mercurio — including asking, “Who’s paying for this [campaign]?” and Mercurio’s response that he “can’t disclose my client yet.”

After seeing Soghoian’s post and fact-checking Goldman’s pitch (finding large portions of it factually incorrect), the public relations firm became the story.

And, if true, that story is unflattering. The articles in USA Today and PRNewser both portray B-M as trying to shield the identity of its client and as circulating misleading, if not false, information.

Continue reading " PR Pros: Haven’t We Learned Anything About Disclosure? "

With all of the noise the FTC’s “blogger rules” made when first introduced in late-2009, you would think that most marketers and agencies would have gotten the point by now the FTC is serious about cracking down on bloggers and companies posting fake reviews. Apparently, there are a few who still haven’t gotten the message.

That looks to be the case following news of a $250,000 fine the FTC recently slapped on Legacy Learning Systems Inc. for bogus product reviews it procured from affiliate marketers and bloggers on behalf of clients.

Continue reading " $250K Reasons to Pay Attention to the ‘Blogger Rules’ "

Certainty is a funny thing, at least when it comes to CEO influence. Have too much of it, and executives risk being perceived as all-knowing rulers, largely immune to the interests and concerns of their underlings. Too little, and a CEO starts to lose the confidence of his most trusted employees; those who help shepherd his or her ideas along the conveyor belt of managerial instructions.

But what lies in between? Is there a happy medium where a good dose of executive confidence meets an equally humble level of uncertainty? Can CEOs express doubt in their communications without losing employees’ confidence?

A recent research study by Stanford marketing professor Zakary Tormala appears to have found the answer. And his findings might surprise you . . .

Continue reading " The Persuasive Power of Uncertainty "