To Do or Not To Do

I have been reading some articles from Chelgate’s website, an independent UK PR consultancy, and I found some of them quite interesting. This PR agency has its Headquarters in London, offices in the North of England, Romania and Brussels and an international network of associates around the world.

The article that I have to highlight is written by Terence Fane-Saunders. For those who don’t know him, he is Chaelgate’s Chairman and Chief Executive, widely regarded as one of the leaders of the international public relations profession. Before founding Chelgate in 1988, he was Chairman and Chief Executive of Burson-Marsteller, one of the three largest public relations firms in the UK, and served as a member of that company's international management board.

The article's name is "Ethics and Public Relations" and talks about what a PR practitioner should do or refuse to do. I have been thinking for a couple of days, what I would and wouldn’t do as a practitioner, and trust me, is very difficult to know exactly what you would do, because when you are working for your boss, you have to do what you are told or you will be fired so. are practitioners really allowed to act according to their own ethics, or are they threatened by their superiors?

The article says that to create positive and productive relationships, they have to be founded on trust, and in order for someone to trust us, it is essential to tell the truth. But, is it possible to always tell the truth or are lies sometimes worthwhile to do the least harm possible?

Below you can see some “don’t do’s” from Terence Fane-Saunders’s list:

We don't lie.
We don't withhold facts if we know that by withholding them we actually mislead.
We don't buy favours. If a media trip is primarily a "jolly" for the journalists, rather than a chance to see and learn, then that is buying favours. And we don't.
We don't abdicate responsibility. We are not just messengers in Brooks Brothers suits. We are responsible for the information we provide. "Well, that's what I was told" isn't good enough. If we have reason to doubt the facts, we check and check again.
We don't make promises. And when we do make them, we keep them. And if we don't keep them, we admit the fact and put the record straight. And if we can't be straight, we quit public relations and start selling Time Share.