Ethics in Public Relations

-----posted on behalf of Ong Wei Ni------------

While serving my placement in my current firm, other than doing the usuals such as monitoring the media, crafting out media releases and drafting the next communications plan, I thought about the context of ethics in the public relations context. As it is difficult to define what ethics truly is, I decided to google the meaning of it. This is what businessdictionary.com has provided me with: Ethics is the basic concepts and fundamental principles of right human conduct. This is also debatable to a certain extent of what exactly is "right" and who is to determine what is right and what is not?

With regards to my current internship placement, I did not experience anything "unethical" or out of the norm to spark off this discussion. This was just something that I had spent some time thinking about and decided to blog about it. Many people demand public professional practitioners to be responsible for what they say, preach and do. To see it on a normal basis, there is nothing wrong about it - we all have to be responsible for what we do. However, to see it on a corporate view, how do you differentiate between clinching a deal that is of utmost importance in gaining the material worth of a media release and whatnot but on the other hand, being susceptible towards something that you might not wish to commit yourself to? 

What I think is that we all have to stand firm on what we strongly believe in. This also brings us to the fact that why all firms and companies have vision and mission statements. They are to empower employees to stay rooted in what an organisation believes in and all employees will move in that direction. This article will share more about ethics in a public relations context > http://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/Ethics/documents/CS4A.pdf > I found this quite relevant to what we're studying. Have a good read!