For Ethics Month, I wanted to look at new topics and geographies. Joining me this week is Alex Dance, the Managing Director of ERA Communications in Cambodia.
He discusses several important ethics issues, including:
1) What should you do when clients are even tangentially affiliated with a coup?
2) The state of misinformation in Cambodia
3) The impact of influencers on Cambodians
4) Ethical challenges with clickbait
This week there were almost too many PR ethics stories, and almost all of them are powerful. From PRWeek and Google highlight the long DEI road ahead and new ways to approach it; to advocacy, exploitation, AI, Art, and conflict of interest…there is an ethics topic for everyone.
Jamie Floer, APR, CPRC, Fellow PRSA, the Communications Manager for the Toho Water Authority, discusses a number of ethics issues, including:
1) How to successfully advocate for transparency
2) How to protect your company’s reputation when other similar brands are having ethics failures
3) Why we need to keep ethics front and center
Once again, I didn’t have to look far for ethics stories this week. I strongly encourage everyone to read the HBR study on what ethical failures customers are least likely to accept. There are also videos and Webinars from PRSA and PRCA and a link to some great ethics swag.
This week in public relations ethics there were some really interesting articles that look at duty, leadership and the need for counsel.
Like many people, I have been having a lot of fun playing around with Craiyon (formerly Dall E mini) the AI tool that can create some awesome images just from a sentence. It failed me when I asked it to create an image of Syracuse Football winning a game. I
Joining me in this week’s episode is Greg Bailey, APR, Fellow PRSA, the founder of Finley + Bailey Strategic Communication. He discusses a number of important public relations ethics issues including:
1) What to do when a client asks you to hide their identity as part of a coalition
2) Why we need top to turn the mirror on ourselves
3) The growing challenge of malformation
4) How to make sure your employees understand how you value ethics
I am going to have so many examples to discuss with my students when we go back to class in two weeks. This week in public relations ethics it was everything from disclosure to fake videos, and cultural appropriation.
Elizabeth Edwards, the founder of Volume PR and the Engagement Science Lab, discusses a number of important issues, including:
1) The ethical challenges of weaponized communication
2) Avoiding thought-terminating cliches
3) What is the one tool or word, PR pros should retire
4) Why we need to think of meaning, not just tactics
There were a number of interesting communication ethics issues this week ranging from business operations and liability to sources of disinformation.