 Once upon a time, I had a job where I worked in an organization that had different large meetings and things like that where employees would be summoned and things and some of these events some of these Meetings and things we would ask her boss. Do we really have to attend this? Is this something that we have to go to and she would say well, it's an expectation. You're expected to attend It's not a requirement. She would clarify. It's not a requirement. It's not in your contract We understand that but it is an expectation that you attend these things and and the clarification there was okay It's not legally part of your contract or whatever But if you don't come it's gonna have consequences It's gonna make a black mark on your record and things like that So so we would always go if it was an expectation We need to go even if it wasn't a legal requirement There was sort of an ethical responsibility there in a sense that I was thinking about that in relation to The ethical and legal issues in public relations specifically in the field of public relations There are ethical obligations there are legal obligations and they are closely intertwined and often times overlap one another But they're not exactly the same thing So I wanted to spend a little time here differentiating between those things and discussing just kind of in general What are some of the ethical and legal obligations for public relations professionals that so let's start with the definition of what are ethics? What do we mean when we say ethics? Well ethics are the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group culture or You know, etc, right? So they are essentially the expectations. How are we expected to to? Behave and what are we expected to do as DC humans living in the world and living in a community or working in our organization? What are those expectations that are placed upon us? Not necessarily what are the laws that relate to those things? But what are the expectations that other people might have of us and more specifically for public relations? We really just say the same thing but a code of conduct outlining the principles values and obligations of the craft of public relations So how you know, what are those expectations specifically as they relate to the field of public relations? Now that's pretty vague principles values obligations. So what are those? Well, they're you know, they're different definitions of that but but the one of the primary organizations in Public relations right is the public relations Society of America or the PRSA and the PRSA does have this code of ethics But they break down into two different kind of categories within the code of ethics They they discuss what they call our values the PRSA code of ethics values and then the PRSA code of ethics provisions of conduct So just to briefly take a look at those a straight from a PRSA code of ethics Information the values that they put forth in their code of ethics include advocacy honesty expertise independence loyalty and fairness These are all different things and you can find more information about this on the PRSA website You can find it right there the citation there and but essentially we are expected to advocate for Not only for our organization, but for the public good. We're expected to be honest We're expected to demonstrate to have and demonstrate then expertise. We're you know, all of these things So advocacy honesty expertise independence loyalty fairness. These are the values According to the PRSA that a public relations professional should demonstrate and should seek to live out in their professional life So they have these values that we put forth then there are also the provisions of conduct How is it that we should behave not just what are the principles that we should uphold? But how is it that a public relations professional should behave in an ideal world? Well, the provisions of conduct include things like the free-flow of information in other words Kind of facilitating that free-flow of information Competition meaning competition is healthy and and we should value that and we should thrive in that competition disclosure of information both You know discuss conflicts of interest here in a second. That's another provision But disclosure of information being honest being forthright with the public and organization and everything else Safeguarding confidences that that loyalty that trust that trustworthiness and honesty in safeguarding the confidence is now Understanding that it's not exactly the same as attorney-client privilege or something like that It's not legally protected, but we do have an expectation that that we safeguard the confidence of our Of our clients and of our organizations and not just goes sharing You know different secrets of that organization, you know, you don't work for KFC and give out their secret recipe All right, so you don't do that for any organization Conflicts of interest or another one we have an obligation to disclose those things and to work against Those conflicts of interest and would having them be a part of our professional lives and then enhancing the profession in general It ought to be something that we're working towards as well. So again, we had those values and now we have Some more specific descriptions of how we ought to put those things into Into play specifically through our conduct So those relate to ethics those things according to the PRSA are the code of ethics that we should adhere to now How is that different though when we think about? Ethics versus legal issues and what's the difference between ethics? ethical and legal then so Just in brief here in a in the broadest possible sense legal Refers to things that are explicit rules and regulations. They are codified meaning they are written down. These are very clearly stated They're applied to a broad collective entity Meaning a society a group of people and and everybody's expected to adhere to these things and recognition of these laws is compulsory It's not an option for us to just kind of ignore Well, you know, that's true for so that laws applies to some people but not for me or not to other people a law is a law And it applies to everyone and everyone needs to recognize that and adhere to that and abide by those laws then right? That's the idea of a society a legal society. So they are explicit They are they are laid out very clearly and that's why the law is so specific Right and so because legal expectations need to be so so that everybody understands them They are applied to that broad collective entity. They applied to everyone and everyone is required to follow them now Conversely, we think about ethics. They're a little bit different in that people are encouraged to do these things They are encouraged standards of conduct, but they are not necessarily a requirement not an explicit Requirement in the way that that a law is and the legal issues are They are relevant to an individual or specific organization But that could change when you go next door to a different organization or a different person That ethical standard could be different and the way that those are applied or the way the person chooses to enact those ethical standards could vary from person to person and from organization to organization and Recognition of these things is voluntary. So the PRSA gives us a great code of conduct and lays it out very clearly But it's really up to the the public relations professional whether or not they choose to adhere to those things if they don't Then there may be consequences in terms of people may not want to trust you or work with you or whatever But there's not going to be any jail time involved for ignoring an ethical You know standard or a guideline, right? They're they're encouraged But they're voluntary as opposed to laws which are not only Required and applied broadly, but they are mandatory. They are compulsory So there's a lot of overlap a lot of times between ethics and legally a lot of times laws are derived from ethical standards And then codified in a more formal way But they are different and we need to understand those differences and and how they're both applied and adhered to So some common issues that come up in terms of ethics and you know ethical and legal issues in public relations specifically Include things like plagiarism Plagiarism not only is an ethical conundrum in terms of you know, we should not do that Obviously, we want to give credit where credit is due we don't take work from others But it's also it could be a legal issue and if we're plagiarizing in and we're profiting from that in some way Then it could extend into a legal area as well. So that's a that's an issue that could Certainly broadly be applied in an ethical sense and it could also Potentially be a legal issue as well. So we need to be aware of plagiarism as a common issue in ethical and legal standards In public relations copyright infringement is a big one not only again Are we do we have an obligation just as decent human beings to give credit where credit is due and and not Essentially steal from others by by violating copyright laws but there are of course very specific copyright laws that apply and so those could carry, you know legal Consequences both it could be usually Most copyright infringement is going to involve some sort of fine or things like that But could potentially involve jail time depending on what it is there are a lot of factors that go into it So copyright infringement not only an ethical issue, but also a legal issue even if it doesn't extend into the legal It certainly applies to the ethical issue This is especially important to note in social media We've gotten a little looser with this and our thinking in terms of you know Let's not really copyright infringement if it's just on my Facebook page or on my Twitter if it's social media Then it's there's a fair use Provision that's involved and I don't have to worry about it if it's a meme or something That's not true that none of that is true. I mean there are very specific copyright Copyright is copyright. It doesn't matter if it's social media or traditional media or whatever copyright and you know violating somebody's copyright rights is Illegal and and does carry consequences beyond just the ethical standards So we need to be very much aware of that social media is no different Conflict of interest again, that's one of those standards that the PRSA brings up We need to be aware of potential legal issues involved in that as well certainly ethical issues if we are involved in a conflict of interest as Professionals that's not something we want to get into but could potentially have legal consequences as well If it's found that we're not disclosing or we are specifically Concealing information that would that would be considered a conflict of interest. So be aware of those things the issue of comment No comment now typically this is not as much a legal issues an ethical one But but when you when somebody says no comment, we tend to just automatically assume while they're lying They're covering something up things like that even if that's not the case. So we need to be aware of the ethical kind of Perspective on comment no comment type things as well as when we use the term off the record This is one that's greatly misunderstood people think that if well if I say off the record the journalist is not allowed to use it Period they have a legal obligation not to use it and it's confidential And it can't be shared with anyone at any time for any reason that is absolutely not true There are ethical professional standards that journalists use when somebody say somebody says something is off the record But they're not under any legal compulsion to keep that to themselves So we as as public relations professionals need to be aware that nothing is technically truly ever off the record We're depending on the professionalism and the general ethical standards of that individual not of any legal Right that we have to not have ourselves be quoted just because we say off the record So there are other things that we can say You know in different levels of that that would but really involves a level of trust with that particular journalist And whether or not you find them to be ethical because they have no legal Standing or we have no legal standing to say well that was off the record and you can't use it So those are just some of the you know There are lots of ethical and legal issues involved in our profession of public relations But those are just some of the more common ones that we need to be aware of and and and get the discussion started for these types of things So hopefully as you can see there's a lot of crossover between ethical and legal issues although they are two separate and distinct things It is our responsibility as public relations professionals to understand what those obligations are whether they are ethical and Voluntary and and things like that where they are legal and carry much severe more severe consequences to violate those things but You know in the end obviously if you violate legal standards people are going to have trouble trusting you But the same is true for ethical standards We need to have the highest of ethics in our profession because we rely so much on trust between Ourselves and the media and our publics and everything else we need to be able to be trustworthy and we need to be seen as ethical so The ethical and the legal should both be very much front of mind considerations at every turn in our particular work If you have questions about the ethical or legal standards or issues in public relations, please feel free to reach out via email I'd love to talk to you that way and and discuss this further in the meantime I hope this gives you a little inkling of an understanding of those issues and the importance Role that they play in the the execution of The public relations professionals life