• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • 1 (888) 747-7453
  • 1 (709) 747-7453
  • info@lornepike.com
Client List     |     Blog     |     Testimonials
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
in St. John's & Saskatoon | Lorne Pike & Assoc

in St. John's & Saskatoon | Lorne Pike & Assoc

  • Website Design | SEO | Social Media
    • Website Design
    • SEO
    • Social Media
  • Facilitator | Coaching | Training
    • Facilitating
    • Interview Coaching
    • Media Training
    • Speaking
  • About
    • About
    • Blog
    • Client List
    • Contact Us

The Dark Side of Public Relations

How much better would they have emerged if they had insisted on honesty from the very beginning?

How much better would they have emerged if they had insisted on honesty from the very beginning?

Public relations is suffering from bad PR. The industry is seen as the corporate vehicle for hiding the truth, and somehow wringing good news from bad. Have an oil spill? Did a patient die on the operating table? Did the chairman have an affair with an assistant? No problem… call in the PR team. It has created a sad situation, and we all suffer the consequences.

Actually, it’s not hard to see how we got here.

Restoring PR as a business function

It’s only natural that companies would call in their best communicators when faced with a crisis. But it is both politically and financially unwise to reserve the PR function for crises. Public relations should always be actively involved in corporate planning, able to contribute to the directions being set, rather than just figuring out how to put the best spin on the decisions once they’ve been made. If companies had sound advice on communications for every decision, at least two significant benefits would result:

  • PR would no longer be seen only as a vehicle for disguising bad news, and all corporate communications would gain more credibility; and
  • Companies would be able to anticipate potential public-relations problems before directions are set and decisions made.

The greatest tragedy is that not only the general public, but many decision-makers and even PR teams themselves, have come to see public relations primarily as a resource for crisis communications. The best way to change that is to make sure the team is at the table whenever policy is being set, not just when there’s bad news to wrap.

Remember honesty?

On an even deeper level though, there is another trend that needs to be reversed. Unfortunately, it seems to be increasingly more natural for businesspeople to lie when it’s expedient to do so. Companies and leaders — and hey, all of us — have to get back to believing that it is never okay to lie. From a credibility, integrity, and yes often even a financial point of view, the bottom line is better served by the truth rather than a lie. Consider Watergate, the Canadian military’s Somolia crisis, Clinton and Lewinsky, and many, many, many other situations. How much better would the leaders have emerged if they had insisted on honesty from the very beginning? Even after the initial serious mistakes had been made, the situations could still have been kept from spiraling out of control if more integrity had been shown in facing the truth.

Imagine if the leaders in those situations had had the courage to stand up early and say, “I have made a serious mistake, and I want to set things right. I will not hide or disguise the truth in any way, and I will not tolerate it from anyone else.” It might have turned those crises into opportunities to show character, and start building for a better tomorrow. It didn’t happen, but it could have.

And from a credibility, integrity, and financial point of view, it should have.

      

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Shonali Burke says

    October 31, 2010 at 10:07 am

    Amen, Lorne. The tragedy of PR is that most of the time, we’re called in to do damage control… when we’re not being asked to “generate buzz” by business owners/organizations with little-to-no thought as to if/how that buzz will actually impact the desired business outcomes.

    One of the rules I’m trying to adhere to now, especially when evaluating new clients, is whether their business premise is fundamentally sound. I will not – repeat NOT – start work if it’s not; and if they haven’t even gotten their messaging and communication fundamentals down, then that’s where I start. Outreach can wait; first make sure the product/service is sound and you know you’re actually going to serve your stakeholders well. If not, then it really is just “spin.”

    Reply
  2. Lorne Pike says

    October 31, 2010 at 8:57 pm

    Great comment, Shonali. It’s actually similar to what “branding” has become in marketing, where companies will say that want to rebrand themselves without any understanding of the full range of elements that make up a company’s brand. It’s not just a marketing plot, and public relations is not just buzz or spin. Thanks for your example of how you’re standing up for that.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Strategic Communication – Ethics in Ad and PR says:
    March 28, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    […] between being ethically correct, or remaining loyal to their client. There are a lot of examples of dark public relations within politics. Some of these examples being the Watergate scandal, that eventually led to Nixon […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

“my ‘go-to’ person for issues requiring public relations expertise.”


“I highly recommend Lorne as a very knowledgable and experienced public relations and marketing professional. He is someone who cares about people first and it clearly showed when I used his consulting service many years ago and again recently. He is definitely my ‘go-to’ person for issues requiring public relations expertise.”

— Wendy Scammell, Accounting Consultant, St. John’s, NL, Canada

Did You See These?

40 questions for your website design 2021

“We’ve talked and talked. Nothing changed. How can a facilitator help?”

When do you need a facilitator?

I lose weight. You get more productive.

How to recover when you’re blowing an interview

6 ways to make a New Year’s Resolution that works! (Part 2)

Footer

About Us

Looking for a professional facilitator, innovative marketing consultant, website designer, or SEO and social media help? Need exceptional media training or interview coaching? We create solutions that deliver results.

More About Us

Here we are

St. John’s, NL

Office Space NL, Suite 123,
510 Topsail Road
St. John’s, NL, Canada, A1E 2C2
Toll-free: 1(888) 747-7453
Local:       1(709) 747-7453
info@lornepike.com

________

Saskatoon, SK

Broadway Collective, 101-733 Broadway Avenue, Saskatoon, SK, Canada, S7N 1B3
Toll-free: 1(888) 747-7453
info@lornepike.com

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • xing

It’s time

Want to make your marketing or communications more effective, with an industry expert who listens and cares? Let’s make that happen.

Return to Top
·
Home
·
Blog
·
Testimonials
·
Contact
·
Sitemap
·
Copyright © 2023 Lorne Pike & Associates 
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT

Yes, I am ready to make the most of my interview!

Please send me more info on Interview Coaching.