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?

Continue reading " Has PR Become a ‘Lightning Rod of Mistrust’? "

Confession: my name is Steve, I am 38-years-old and, and … I am a public relations professional.

Sixteen years ago I thought I was doing a filthy job. I was a journalist: knocking on the doors of just-bereaved parents, phoning ministers of religion for comments on the sin stories I was about to break, stitching up civic dignitaries by quoting them well out of context.

In the past few weeks, given what has happened with U.K. newspaper The Independent’s sting on PR agency Bell Pottinger, I could be forgiven for thinking my hands are dirtier now than they were back then. PR professionals have long faced questions about the moralistic implications of what they do, but rather than the mysteries of the “dark arts,” observers’ thoughts have been drawn to misconceptions of illicit foulness dripping from our greedy hands.

All of which is, in my experience, untrue. In fact there’s a very British word for it: bollocks.

Sure, some PR professionals have always been willing to take on lucrative contracts from dubious sources. None of us are utterly holy, or at least if any of us are I haven’t met them yet. We have all, if we’re honest (and we should be) told untruths — or been extremely liberal with the truth — to protect the interests of clients.

But Pottingergate has ruffled the feathers of many agency top brass and senior managers. The reason is this: we had enough on our plates with the fact that if PR agencies do not fundamentally modernize the basis of their commercial success, they will die. Now we have another challenge: not only must we modernize, we must also sanitize.

Where Should the Line Be Drawn on Ethics?

A lot of senior, well-paid people in public relations have tried to wear the ethical badge in recent years. Without ethics, we are unable to continue to operate in a transparent age when clients require a responsible approach to communication, they say. They’re right, but ethics is a relative term, certainly in the public relations field. The industry organizations have rightly stood up and been counted on this, but PR professionals must figure out themselves where the line must be drawn on what is ethical and what isn’t. Whereas the British media at the moment faces the threat of imposed legislation to govern its conduct, the PR industry  must develop a form of self-regulation.

My bet is that the answer will be driven by market forces rather than a consensus view on ethics.

Continue reading " Time for PR to Cleanse Itself of Ethical Transgressions "

Revelations in the U.K. last week of spurious and unethical actions from the renowned global PR firm Bell Pottinger have cast a pall over the U.K. PR industry. For any public relations professional who values transparency and ethics ahead of lofty client billings, the multi-day exposé in The Independent newspaper of London makes for grim reading.

The editorial series is worth a read, and I encourage you to dig into it to form your own opinions.

Before diving into some of the specific issues addressed in the reports, let’s be clear on two important points:

First, offering to manipulate a client’s online reputation through the use of fake online accounts, newly created blog pages or fake online reviews is not only foolhardy (the likelihood of getting caught is very high), it is unethical. Lacking in transparency, such activities would be in violation of PRSA’s Code of Ethics and are banned in both the U.K. and the U.S. (the latter through the FTC’s “Blogger Rules.”).

It has been said before, but is worth repeating: the Internet does not forget. It is one of the greatest truth-seekers the world has ever known. If, like the Bell Pottinger executives, you are asked by a potential or current client to manipulate a Wikipedia entry or online review, your obligation as an ethical practitioner is to explain the lack of ethics behind such manipulation. And, if the client does not understand or refuses to acknowledge those concerns, the next step is refusal to comply.

Second, the act of representing a dictatorship, such as Bell Pottinger would have done had it taken on the proposed work with the Uzbekistan government, is a slippery slope for the public relations profession. As PRNewser reports, “Uzbekistan has a reputation for child labor and other human rights violations.”

Continue reading " Bell Pottinger Lobbying Scandal: The ‘Dark Arts’ of Unethical PR "