CHAPTER 12

The Ethics of Public Relations

By Carol Ames

What is PR? Why do organizations need it? Most people can’t answer these questions, but they have an uneasy feeling that PR is something that celebrities need when they’re promoting a movie or when they’re trying to make the public forget about DUI arrests and unattractive mug shots. In fact, public relations professionals are essential intermediaries between organizations (or clients) and the public. Their most important function is to communicate information back and forth between the two. PR professionals face ethical decisions daily, if not hourly, in this two-way process. Making ethical decisions requires knowledge of the tools available to the PR person, publicist, public ...

Get Real-World Media Ethics now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.