Deception in Public Relations and Journalism

In Public Relations and in Journalism, there will be times as we have learned that one must choose between guarding information and releasing information to the public. Some believe that it is right to keep information private and others believe that it is right to tell the public of information that is told to them. In this case, there are certain ethical guidelines that must be followed.  The Public Relation’s Society of America code of ethics states that lying directly to the public is unacceptable. One must also decide just how much they are willing to stand by their client upon learning that they are not entirely ethical. It is important to accentuate the good truth in clients but also shed light to any unethical issues that have occurred that is considered to be important information to the public in order to avoid lying to the public.

An example from our textbook explains how a well-known PR firm, Hill & Knowlton, was hired to manipulate the public into supporting US intervention against Iraq in the Gulf War. The firm showed testimony before the Human Rights Caucus about mayhems done by the Iraqi troop in Kuwait that was false. The firm was given the choice to decide whether to keep the fact that this was false testimony a secret and to, in a sense, trick the public, or whether to tell the truth. 

The criteria that I would use to decide whether to make the information known is a combination of the ethical perspectives of Jay Black, Bob Steele and Ralph Barney (1995, p.120) in order to decide whether any information that could be deceptive is considered ethical. This includes deciding if the truth is important to the public, if all alternatives to this information have been used, the motives and the consequences behind the deception, the harm from obtaining the information versus keeping it a secret, and the reason behind this disclosure. If it were the case that Kuwait was truly being treated unfairly by Iraqi troops it would hurt Kuwait to keep the information private and benefit the Iraqi troops. However, since the text states that the information was deceptive and that Iraqi troops were not causing atrocities in Kuwait, it would hurt the United States military by allowing the United States to stand up against the Iraqi troops for something that they were deceived on and it would hurt the Iraqi troops due to the fact that they were accused of doing something that they did not do.

Personally, if someone were to use the media to share previously secret information, they would face a lot of scrutiny. There is a chance that they could loose their job and be deemed untrustworthy. In this case, if the Public Relations firm admitted later that they were dishonest, they would receive a lot of backlash for not telling the truth at the time that they were lying to the media.

As a media professional, I believe that it is not always possible to avoid being entangled in secrets. I believe that it is inescapable to be involved in ethical dilemmas but it is your choice as a professional whether you are going to partake in a situation that could, in the future, question your ethical integrity.

Work Cited:

Textbook Controversies in Media Ethics 3^rd Edition by A. David Gordon, John Michael Kittross, John C. Merrill, William A. Babcock, Michael Dorsher

http://blog.entrepreneurthearts.com/2012/06/29/is-it-ok-to-be-a-whistle-blower-and-is-there-new-employment-opportunities-in-loss-prevention-for-creatives/