Happy December! Less than five weeks left in the year, with the holidays, CES and NRF fast approaching. One thing that hasn’t changed is the plethora of ethics issues. There are a few doozies to highlight this week.
Mark McClennan, APR, Fellow PRSA
Mark W. McClennan, APR, Fellow PRSA, is the general manager of C+C's Boston office. C+C is a communications agency all about the good and purpose-driven brands. He has more than 20 years of tech and fintech agency experience, served as the 2016 National Chair of PRSA, drove the creation of the PRSA Ethics App and is the host of EthicalVoices.com
Following are 93 ethics issues the students and I identified and discussed. These stories were ripped from the headlines. If you missed them, they are worth another review. They make great reading and great discussion for the dinner table. Most even have nothing to do with politics. And only a few deal with sports….
While I could probably just write KFC and Twitter, drop the mic and walk away this week – there are some nuances that are worthy of further exploration.
Thank you! Ethical Voices: Practicing Public Relations with Integrity book launched a month early. And it quickly became the #1 and #5 new public relations book (print and kindle) on Amazon.
Well, the elections sure were interesting. Marlene Neill had a great assignment for her students this week where they had to analyze a political ad of their choice to see if it was ethical. Beyond the elections, the common theme in PR ethics issues this week was (the lack of) virtue.
We’re doing something a little bit different this week. I spoke with Technology Journalist Scott Tharler about:
1) The ethics of press trips
2) The ethics of reviews and selling products you review
3) The ethics of affiliate links
This week the ethical issues in public relations rain the gamut, but the core theme was fairness. Fairness in pay equity, fairness in AI decisioning, fairness in promotions, and fairness in accountability.
When I started gathering ethics stories for the week, I was sad because I thought it would be a quiet week. Ooh boy was I wrong. From deepfakes, to destruction and self-destruction (and I am not talking the Patriots), to politics and COP27 there is something for everyone.
Sandy Young, the vice president of J. Walcher Communications, discusses a number of important ethics issues, including:
1) What to do ethically when a reporter wants to showcase a vulnerable person
2) How to handle PR with asylum seekers
3) How to help people understand “No” is an option
4) The ethics of how we are covering Kanye West
5) Why we need to update disclosure rules
This week there were a wide range of ethical issues from slum tourism to sensationalistic news to the importance of stakeholders. But my favorite is celebrating the positive, virtuous action by a radio station show host.