Dr. Joe Trahan, a 30+ year PR pro, retired Lt. Col and media trainer for more than 3,000 people a year, shares his ethics insights in a captivating interview. He discusses:
• How to save your soul when you are in an unethical company
• How fake news is eroding public trust
• Why public relations professionals and PRSA need to be stronger advocates for our profession
• The importance of standing up for what you believe in even in the face of unspeakable threats of violence
Brandi Boatner, the Social and Influencer Communications Lead global markets for IBM addresses a number of communications ethics issues including:
• How can public relations professionals prepare for techlash?
• What questions should PR pros ask to help avoid unconscious bias in campaigns and AI?
• How can social pros best run an ethical influencer campaign?
• Generational challenges with fake news
Mike Neumeier, the CEO of Arketi Group, shares his insight on how PR pros can deal with ethics issues, including:
• What to do when a manager or competitor overpromises
• How and when to disclose
• Unexpected challenges with paid media
Adam Ritchie, the principal of Adam Ritchie Brand Directions, discusses a number of controversial ethical issues, including why it’s time to stop PR’s addiction to fake newswire metrics.
Other topics include:
• A lighting round of four ethical dilemmas he faced
• The insidious practice of double billing
• How Amazon is hurting public relations measurement
Chris Penn, the co-founder and chief data scientist for Trust Insights, is one of the most insightful communications professionals I know.
In this interview, he discusses:
• What to do when your personal ethics conflict with your company’s ethics
• Ethical issues PR people will face with artificial intelligence (AI)
• What questions communications pros should ask their data scientists
• The scary thing about FaceApp people have overlooked
Katie Paine, the CEO of Paine Publishing and a Measurement Queen, discusses a number of ethical issues around public relations measurement and analytics, including:
• How to respond to pressure to fudge numbers
• How public relations success is creating new challenges
• Ethical issues with Automated AI measurement
• Questions every PR pro should ask measurement vendors
Darryl Salerno, the owner of Second Quadrant Solutions, which has helped more than a hundred small, mid-sized and large agencies improve their performance and profitability, discusses a number of key ethics issues, including:
• Why you can’t buy your clients televisions
• The ethics of time sheets
Scott Monty, a neoclassical digital executive who led Ford’s digital and social media discusses:
• The perils of obfuscation
• The top ethics challenges facing communicators today
• How many tech companies are ethically challenged
• Ethics advice from the classics that is still relevant today
Joining me on this week’s episode is Bonnie Upright, the vice president of corporate communications for Coldwell Banker Vanguard. She is a former agency owner who has done outstanding work with celebrity foundations.
Bonnie discusses a number of key ethics issues including:
– Grappling with difficult ethical issues early in your career
– Ethical issues and best practices for managing celebrity and athlete foundations
– The story behind her mother’s viral obituary and how it has been plagiarized more than a dozen times
I figure everyone is either still gone for the long July 4th weekend, or is insanely busy covering for those that are out, so Ethical Voices this week will be a snapshot of exclusive content normally only available on the podcast.