I Know Who I AM: The Function of Definition

“Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.” Ugh! That’s the current definition of PR according to Stuart Elliott’s November 20, 2011 article, “Redefining Public Relations in the Age of Social Media” in The New York Times.

The first issue that arises for me in considering this definition is the implication that Public Relations is a collaborative effort. PR helps the organizations they represent and their stakeholders to ‘adapt’ to each other. That could be believable if PR was an institution that stood apart from the corporation, client, or group it represented and from the public(s) and mediated their mutual relationship from a differentiated position. That is simply not the case as PR firms and departments have a focused agenda on putting the best foot forward of the client they are paid to represent.

Secondly this definition is so vague that it has more loopholes than the current tax code does for the top 1% in this country. For a discipline whose primary tools are words the paucity of this definition should be embarrassing. Yet this definition allows for broad interpretation. Does PR look out for the interests of stakeholders? Of course! Just look at the definition. Does PR ever criticize the organization it represents? Sure it can based on this definition however any example escapes me at the moment. Of course there are those times, like when Firestone tires were throwing treads and blowing out causing SUV’s to roll over and over, where PR firms eventually had to ‘come clean’ and address reality after attempting to assist the public and Firestone to “adapt mutually to each other” i.e. accept Firestone’s denials of responsibility.

Thirdly the definition is certainly showing its age. It was written in a time before Web 1.0. In the world of Web 2.0 where communications flow in many different directions at one time this definition still assumes a top down mentality. However, it can be read as though it claims a collaborative process. The role of PR is to referee the relationships between the organization and stakeholders. This assumption points towards an unethical pose (which would be not telling the truth) where in reality the PR department/company has one focus – to support the organization’s image.

To improve upon this interpretation a new definition would need to be precise, clearly state what the function(s) of public relations is(are), reflect the current culture (Web 2.0), and, most of all, communicate the honesty of the profession. To construct a modern definition I would begin with a ‘word cloud’ already present in PRSA’s code of ethics. So here goes:

While clearly acknowledging any conflict of interests public relations strives to present honest and accurate information while being heedful of information flowing from organizations and stakeholders.

In my opinion when PR departments/businesses are blinded by conflict(s) of interest the result is usually an episode that damages the whole profession. Generalization and stereotyping come easy to human nature. All it takes is one BP or Firestone or, and we’re reaching way back here, one Ford Pinto exploding and burning followed by implausible explanations or excuses doled out by PR representatives to, in the public’s mind, associate the whole discipline with dishonesty and being no more than a tool in the hands of corporate America.

At least my definition indicates that, at the outset, PR lays out clearly who or what is being represented. The public is informed, therefore, that PR is representing a specific point of view and can expect that information will be influenced by that relationship. However, this does not mean that information will be inaccurate or untrue just to satisfy the client as the definition points toward a concerted effort to be “honest and accurate” in its releases.

Public relations, in the past few years, has waded into ethically shark infested waters when firms decided to represent people like Muammar Gaddaffi. The Monitor Group had Gaddaffi as a client from 2006 to 2008 but more than having him as a client they evidently tried to muddy the perspective of the relationship by claiming it was ‘academic’ in nature (you can read about it here). The article in The Guardian points out that using academics to carry out a PR campaign is ethically problematic especially when a person like Gaddaffi is footing the bill. The primary ethic that was violated was that money trumped the accurate and honest presentation of information.

This situation was pernicious in that The Monitor Group attempted to hide their PR campaign behind the authenticity of academia. The more reputable the academic the happier Gaddaffi was since he knew that would get him the most favorable press. How bad could this guy be if he is smart enough to write books or articles with some of the worlds greatest intellectuals? This also continued to provide cover for his regime to abuse the populace. Thus, even though The Monitor Group would deny this, they had an active role in perpetrating harm against innocent civilians. Finally, the PR business itself was again sullied by a firm taking on a client who was clearly homicidal on a grand scale for the sake of a fat payoff. In this case money triumphed over transparency, honesty, truth, and accurate information. This was a total fail in my book.

Public relations is a billion dollar business. When there are piles of money involved ethics often suffer. Money is not the root of all evil but the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10a). If a stream of capital is threatened will the PR person’s loyalty be to the information that may dam that stream or to the free flow of money? The best way to insure that representatives of the PR profession uphold the values of the discipline a system needs to be in place to insure ongoing education and training.

Licensure is the first step but a license alone is inadequate. Many professions, medical doctors, therapists, social workers, ministers, have to complete so many hours of continuing education to keep their licensure current or to renew their licenses. If public relations truly wants to be placed in the pantheon of professions then it does require discipline and continued instruction of their participants. 

As far as the FTC or PRSA policing PR practitioners and practices it will prove fruitless unless there is a mechanism of enforcement when abuses are discovered. A wink and a nod or a slap on the wrist will do nothing to reform a profession that engage in unethical behavior. Once the Bush Administration shut down Arthur Anderson for the egregious behavior of a very small department (a tax division) within a very large corporation then other accounting firms and their corporate clients began to seriously refine the manner in which they reported their capitalization.

Public relations would best be served by a watchdog agency that has teeth. Whenever a firm steps out-of-line that agency needs to have regulatory power to respond in swift and meaningful ways. Otherwise the profession will be shackled by the generalizations and stereotyping of the general public most often expressed in the rolling of eyes every time a PR person takes the podium.

Hey! That's Mine!

The world changed this week. The US Congress and Senate were poised to pass legislation designed to stop or at least inhibit what the US Department of Justice feels to be rampant theft of intellectual property produced by content providers such as but not limited to RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music. At the beginning of the week members of Congress thought they would be taking up non-controversial legislation, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the House and PIPA (Protect IP Act) in the Senate. (For detailed information check here.)

The world changed when both chambers, being feted by the usual business lobbyists in support of the legislation, were dumbfounded by the groundswell opposition that web sites like Wikipedia, Wired, Reddit, and Google generated seemingly overnight simply by dramatizing a worst case scenario outcome of these acts on their pages. They also put up on their sites why they opposed the legislation. Instead of lobbying elected representatives they lobbied the public and set up mechanisms for them to lobby Congress on their behalf. 

This was a fundamental paradigm shift away from the status quo of corporate lobbyists to the uncharted waters of internet democracy (anarchy?). For good or ill leaders and members of both houses scrambled to see who could distance themselves the quickest from the legislation while today both chambers announced that they would not be bringing the legislation to the floor until it could be further revised. (For a rather insightful article in the New York Times go here.)

This brings me to Case 2–A, What’s Yours Is Mine: The Ethics of News Aggregation, pg. 38, in Media Ethics: Issues & Cases by Patterson and Wilkins. I will consider this case in light of the code of ethics provided by the Society of Professional Journalists (see it here) as a guide for modern journalists.

Case 2–A reports how the Hartford Courant cut jobs from its news gathering staff but was pressured for content as their online presence became more robust. Instead of hiring back staff they began a process of “aggregating local news from surrounding dailies.” (pg. 38) Utilizing this methodology of news reporting (gathering?) conflicts with the above mentioned code of ethics in several ways. Here are but a few from the top:

• Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
• Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.
• Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources’ reliability.
• Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.

And, of course, the really big one —

• Never plagiarize.

These five statements come from the section titled, Seek Truth and Report It. The title alone raises its own ethical issue and questions whether aggregating news is the same as seeking it. Also, if news is aggregated how does one test accuracy, seek out subjects, identify sources, determine the context, or avoid plagiarism? If the stories I’m producing are not actually mine but flow from an aggregation of sources am I still a journalist? Am I still bound by my code of ethics?

I feel and think that if I choose to be guided by the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics then the dilemma presented by aggregating news stories is rather cut and dried. I cannot check out “my” sources because they are not mine. I cannot really determine the accuracy of the story since I really didn’t write it I only extracted from it. I cannot be certain of the context, question sources, or even be certain if plagiarism exists since I’m not chasing down the story. Instead I’m sitting at a computer collating material from various sources provided on the Internets. Therefore, in my understanding, I am not a journalist in the classical sense and perhaps this code of ethics no longer applies in my “newsroom.”

Still the question begs: is this right? Is it ethical to take the work of others and provide a synergistic rendition of it for my own purposes? How Google of me! At least Google maintains the integrity of the original story and links back to the actual source. What the Hartford Courant did, on the other hand, was a violation of the code of ethics especially where stories taken from competitors were not credited to the source from whence they came. That is plagiarism which, in my thinking, is the unpardonable sin a journalist can commit. The only way out of this ‘sin’ is for the Hartford Courant to come up with some other description of their employees than ‘journalists.’

However, the world has changed this week. Content providers, representing the old economies of news gathering, thinking they had finally crafted legislation to put this stubborn genie back in its bottle was suddenly confronted by a massive negative response from the public. It would appear that the public had grown fond of this genie that made content produced by the intellectual work of corporations and individuals free.

That ‘genie’ is also labeled or obfuscated as ‘internet freedom’ which tends to cloud the issue somewhat. It raises questions like: are intellectual property rights more important than the free flow of information? Is the monetary payoff of intellectual work more important than allowing that work, be it a story, video, or news, to be accessed by the largest number of people (i.e. free)?

As I consider the Ethical Models we have covered in the course I believe we are tied. From Aristotle, Bok, and Kant I can make the ethical decision that work produced and owned by an individual or corporation is the property of that entity. Therefore, when that work is delivered to the marketplace for consumption those who hold title to it should be compensated. It is right by my conscience (Bok), it is consistent and continues to be consistent (Aristotle), and I respect the individual (personal or corporate) as the proper source of the material (Kant).

Let me change hats now from a Modern to a Postmodern perspective. The age in which we find ourselves is one of great friction between the modernist world view and that of the postmodernist. In my estimation Bok, Aristotle, and Kant are fairly representative of a world view that implies there is one metanarrative from which true values and morals flow into all other narratives. Yet the Utilitarian, Pluralism, and Communitarian models of ethics points more towards a world where the center does not hold. In fact, there is no center, no metanarrative to guide all others. Rather there are overlapping and competing narratives in which values and morals are self-contained. In this world ‘truth’ is the narrative that is currently on the top which means that the values and morals carried with it provides the ethical framework as well.

Getting back to the Hartford Courant from the ‘old’ world perspective of modernism they are clearly behaving in an unethical manner as is Google, Reddit, and any other media source that aggregates or collects and disseminates materials without proper compensation or attribution. However, in the postmodern world the ethical situation becomes unclear. The ethical outcome of news aggregation is really dependent upon democratic response much like that to SOPA and PIPA this week.

Given that the popular response to news aggregation is generally positive (what would happen if Google News went dark?) then the ethical systems of Utilitarianism, Communitarianism, and Pluralism would favor the narrative of news aggregation and let Hartford Courant off the hot seat explaining that the service they provided to the community is important, the reach of the service is very broad and needed, and more people had access to the service which means their actions are ethical.

Let’s stir the waters a bit more. Yesterday Apple made an announcement in New York City concerning textbooks (see the keynote here). They released a program called iBooks Author. This program allows teachers anywhere and everywhere to compose their own textbooks by aggregating text, photos, graphics, video, diagrams, mathematical equations, keynote (powerpoint) presentations, among other hyper-linked media into an interactive book that can be used by students who have an iPad. The program is free of charge.

I downloaded it and searched in vain for some way to add a citation or footnote to text. There was none nor could I find any way to reference work from a different author/provider unless I add it in body text. 


The only way an author can publish an iBook textbook is via iTunes. Does this mean that Apple will assume the role of ethical gatekeeper as regards copyrighted materials or intellectual property that may find its way into the iBook textbooks authored by various teachers and professors? In the world of Kant, Aristotle, and Bok this is the least that they could do. However, in the new world of Utilitarianism, Communitarianism, and Pluralism a case could be made for anything goes.

The outcry against SOPA and PIPA and their subsequent defeat (before even being debated or voted upon) along with the release of iBooks Author (download from the App Store for free!) are seismic shifts in ethical consciousness. Perhaps it is pointing to a world where the cry, “Hey! That’s mine!” is responded to with an indifferent, “So?”

Secret, Secret, I’ve Got a Secret...

Whenever three human beings are gathered together it is a very high probability that there are several secrets held by each or various combinations of the three. Where do secrets originate? The answer to that lies in the basic building block of society: the family. According to Bowen and Kerr,

Family emotional process creates family secrets. If a family member who is aware of and who respects the function of this process can separate the facts from the myths that comprise most secrets, his effort can be extremely constructive for the family. However, revealing family secrets can be as destructive for a family as keeping secrets if the intensity of the family emotional process that creates secrets is not recognized. The goal of unearthing a secret is to address the relationship processes that created and perpetuated the secret. The careless revealing of a secret may trigger considerable emotional reactivity without addressing these relationship processes effectively. The contention that relationship processes are more important than the content of secrets for creating secrets is supported by the experience that most family secrets are not that interesting or earthshaking. (Kerr, Bowen 1988)

It is my contention that secrecy begins in a microcosm - the family - and from that experience of ‘normality’ it is projected upon the dynamics of larger systems that makes up various organizations.

Within Bowen’s and Kerr’s insight into family secrets I find the kernel of an ethical system for grappling with the decision to uncover a secret or not. First of all secrets are based on relational processes. To reveal a secret means that the potential of harm for relationships, be they individual or global as between nations or groups of nations, is very real. It is important to note here that it is not the actual information in a secret that causes harm, it is the damage to relationships that occurs via the release of that information.

Perhaps there are instances where secrets are best maintained like the dialogues between Great Britain, the United States, and the USSR towards the end of World War II that sought to establish a way to maintain world peace while dividing East and West along divergent political and economic ideologies. Some relational processes require a small number of participants acting for the good of the whole to be able to reach consensus. 

In today’s world those processes are much more difficult to achieve given the ubiquitous recording devices that have instant access to the Internets. For example the release online (already pulled from here on YouTube but still up here) of the video of Marines in Afghanistan urinating on the bodies of three militants came at a time of a very sensitive relational process between the United States and representatives of Mullah Omar of the Taliban. That released material could only serve to damage that process and the nascent relationships arising from it. Should it have been kept a secret? In my opinion yes, since its release was only intended to inflame passions, destroy relationships, and disrupt movement towards peace. 

Thus a very important criteria for me is how much harm or disruption to needed relational processes will occur if, as the gatekeeper of a secret, I release the information to the other or to the public weighted against the public’s need to know, especially if it is “wrongfully held” as Ellsberg may claim. On the flip side of that coin what destructive relational processes will be disrupted through the release of the secret?

For the purpose of the rest of this blog I’ll explore my understanding of the WikiLeaks scandal as covered by Alan Rusbridger in his Introduction. What stood out for me in Rusbridger’s work was the character of Julian Assange. Often the ‘whistleblower’ suffers severe consequences from releasing secrets. In this instance Rusbridger points out that Assange had assembled a firewall of protection that frustrated the governments (the United States primarily) affected by his collection of cables. The frustration arose from his masterful use of the Internets to cover his tracks and his ability to achieve collaboration among competing news sources. 

It was as though Assange suddenly became a ‘super-editor’ as Rusbridger, on page 10, says, “One of the lessons from the WikiLeaks project is that it has shown the possibilities of collaboration. It’s difficult to think of any comparable example of news organisations working together in the way the Guardian, New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais have on the WikiLeaks project.” He also points out the legal difficulties in pursuing Mr. Assange as it would mean putting the editors of these global news sources in the doc as well.

So it looks like a whistleblower got away with it but that is not really the case. First of all Mr. Assange has been arrested on sexual misconduct charges in Sweden. Of course some find these charges very convenient while others feel like it’s just desserts. However, Assange is not the whistleblower in the release of secret cables. That would be Pfc. Bradley Manning. On January 12, in the New York Times there appeared an article, Court Martial Recommended in WikiLeaks Case, about the military prosecutor believing he had sufficient grounds to press charges against Pfc. Manning. If convicted Pfc. Manning could spend the rest of his life in a military prison. You can see that article here.

Unless I had the skill and manipulative talents of Mr. Assange I believe my fate would fall more along the lines of Private Manning were I to release secret information perceived to be damaging to either the United States or some large corporation. At the very least I would be legally pounded much in the manner Daniel Ellsberg was.

Whether or not to release information has to be one of the most difficult ethical decisions a journalist can face. To come to terms with that decision I’d have to ascertain the level of damage to all relational processes: personal, corporate, and governmental. Before releasing the information I’d have to determine to the best of my ability if the harm caused by the release would be outweighed by the good of that information being in the hands of the public.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of the WikiLeaks case has to do with Private Manning. The sensitive government cables he released, once redacted to remove names of operatives who could have been endangered by the release, turned out to be more embarrassing than threatening to the United States government. In short, the great threat of danger and dangerous acts the State Department claimed would take place if those global newspapers released the cables never materialized. 

It turns out that Bowen and Kerr are right, “The contention that relationship processes are more important than the content of secrets for creating secrets is supported by the experience that most family secrets are not that interesting or earthshaking.” (Kerr, Bowen 1988)

References cited:

Alan Rusbridger, WikiLeaks, Introduction

Kerr, Michael E. and Bowen, Murray, Family Evaluation: An Approach Based on Bowen Theory, pg. 308, (W.W. Norton & Company: New York, NY) 1988.

Blog 1: The Ethics of Knowing

Rather than speak to an imaginative future in a media profession I will discuss the current ‘media’ profession in which I find myself as a parish priest. As a priest in a community of faith I am the gatekeeper of information. More than any other person in the parish it is my decision as to what information is passed on to the congregation and what information is withheld from them.

For example, during an average week I receive several pleas for support from various organizations claiming that they are doing good works in the community, state, country, and/or world. Do I pass that information along to everyone? I can easily do so through a parish wide list service that I have set up. I could advertise that information in the parish newsletter, put it in the Sunday bulletin, or verbally endorse it during the announcements.

So let’s say I receive an appeal to endorse and publicize a program that helps people who have fallen through the safety net. This organization provides housing, counseling, and job services for single men who have dual diagnoses: addiction and mental health issues. Their clientele encounter a revolving door in the social services circle with the alcohol & drug facilities claiming they’re mental health patients and mental health claiming that they require the services of A&D programs. This is the only agency that does help them. Their resources are so meager that any help would produce significant results for their clients.

Is it ethical to not mention this program? No doubt in each ethical theory mentioned by Patterson and Wilkins (Bok, Aristotle, Kant, Utilitarianism, Pluralism, and Communitarianism) the ethical outcome would be to support this program as it reduces the harm to society in general by meeting the needs of this class of citizen by getting them off the streets, healthier, and perhaps, a functioning participant in society again. Yet there is another issue here that has nothing to do with the needs of these men: charity fatigue. This is the crux of the dilemma.

The reality is that nearly every program that seeks endorsement and advertisement is worthy in one aspect or another. However, if I, as the gatekeeper, opened the gates and deluged the congregation during the week and every weekend and in every publication medium employed by the parish, members would soon become less and less receptive to any appeal and reluctant to support any program regardless of how much good it generated. More than likely they would begin ignoring the medium through which these appeals were published.

Thus, one ethical dilemma I face on a close to daily basis is whether or not to advertise this or that appeal to the whole congregation. Of course being a media or information gatekeeper applies to many other ethically fraught areas as well besides merely publishing the needs and wants of particular relief organizations. One thing I have learned as a priest - information, solicited or not, flows my way. What I do with that information, whether it is about a social program or an individual or group, nearly always presents an ethical dilemma.

The best examples I can come up with, from history, was the advent of the Federal Programs AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), Food Stamps, and Medicaid which I learned about during my training in social work. For the purpose of this blog I will consider AFDC (which began as Aid to Dependent Children as a part of the Social Security Act of 1935). This program was devised by the Federal government to financially assist children in families that fell below the poverty line. 

This program was available from 1935 until it was ended by President Clinton’s welfare reform in 1996. However, during most of it’s run it was ‘hidden’ from view in some, if not many, states. Although Federally mandated it was administered and run by states. In their effort to contain costs they did very little to advertise the availability of these benefits. As a result many eligible families who could have benefited greatly from this program were denied participation through ignorance which was no fault of their own. Was it ethical behavior on the part of the state governments to obfuscate this needed program?

I have to disagree with Patterson and Wilkins take on religion as stated on page 3, “It is important here to distinguish between ethics, a rational process founded upon certain agreed-on principles, and morals, which are in the realm of religion.” They go on to claim that the Ten Commandments are a moral system with which I agree but to claim that the midrash of the Talmud, and by extension the writers of the New Testament, upon the Torah is but moral framework is a bit of a stretch. The exegesis of Torah by the talmudic scholars and exegetes of the New Testament are sometimes for the purpose of providing an ethical framework through which one may faithfully observe and live the morality expounded by scripture.

In my opinion religion provides a basis for morality and ethics. Given that, I have a rich set of tools to draw upon in regards to making ethical decisions. These tools are provided by the stories of those who practiced their faith with keen insight into the ethical requirements that they understood was based upon the foundation of the morality of scripture and tradition.

St. Augustine redefined the ethical framework regarding war and the Christian, for better or worse, when Rome was “sacked” (wasn’t really a sack so much as negotiated looting) by Alaric in 410 CE. He did this through his work, City of God, where he laid the groundwork for Just War. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s decision to commit murder (the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler) was an ethical decision based upon his understanding of the moral implications of his religious experience. Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple’s refusal to support the war effort during World War II is another example.

Thus, in my understanding, while religion is certainly a generator of morals it is also, of necessity, a generator of ethical frameworks through which individuals and communities can work towards or rise up to and meet the demands of those morals through ethical intercourse.

The readings I have read to date, the first chapter of Media Ethics and the article The Shadow Scholar reconfirms for me the postmodern nature of ethics in this current era: postmodern in the sense that there is no one center or master narrative (meta-narrative) but a series of overlapping narratives. I am learning that to make effective ethical decisions it would probably be best not to lock in on one particular system but to be familiar with as many ethical systems as possible along with the stories (narratives) they produce (the dilemmas and how they were resolved - right or wrong).

Here are some questions I’d like to see addressed:

1. What are limits?
2. What boundaries are appropriate to cross and what ones are inviolable?
3. Is it ever right to release information that will cause harm, any harm?
4. Can one ever ‘get back’ if one crosses an ethical boundary? If so, how?
5. Is it ever ethical to betray a trust?