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Celebrating Ethics Awareness Month

As PR practitioners, we spend a lot of time debating strategy, tactics, platforms and tools for measuring our success. So let’s take a few minutes to discuss ethics, a topic that should be central to every conversation on best PR practices. 

It’s a topic PRSA takes seriously, asking each member to take a pledge “to conduct myself professionally, with truth, accuracy, fairness, and responsibility to the public.”

“PRSA’s Code of Ethics is a distinctive factor that lends depth, foundation and guidance for critical thinking and dialogue to successfully deal with ethical dilemmas faced in professional and personal life,” says 2016 BEPS Chair, Nance Larsen, APR, Fellow PRSA and 2016 chair of PRSA’s Board of Ethics and Professional Standards. 

To show its commitment and heighten the focus, the national organization designates September as Ethics Awareness Month. This year’s theme is “Ethics, the Heart of Leadership,” and the national organization and PRSA Rochester have a variety of programs planned. 

Locally, there’s “Ethics Under Fire,” a luncheon and panel discussion in which experts will offer advice on the critical role ethics plays during challenging times, and every day. The Sept. 27 panel, to be moderated by Rochester PRSA Ethics Chair Ellen Rosen, includes John Follaco, associate director for college communications at The College at Brockport, Barbara Pierce, APR, president of Tipping Point Communications and Jim Redmond, regional vice president, Communications and Community Investment for Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. Registration is available at PRSARochester.org.

At 3 p.m. on Sept. 8, you can participate in a free webinar titled “The Art and Courage of Dealing with Ethical Issues” that will discuss how to recruit allies and form coalitions as a means to be an ethical influence on more senior executives. A distinguished panel – Dr. Bryan Reber, co-author of Gaining Influence in Public Relations, National Ethics Chair Larsen, practitioner Debra Bethard-Caplick and Ethics Officer Emmanuel Tchividjian – will provide examples of persuasive techniques that can be used to raise ethical concerns in executive offices. To join, sign up on the PRSA website.

PRSA is also posting a variety of PRSay blogs and will host Twitter chats including:

• 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 13 – PR Student Chat with Kirk Hazlett, APR, Fellow PRSA, Associate Professor, Communications/Public Relations, Curry College – #PRStudChat;
• 8 p.m. on Sept. 20 – Let’s Talk Ethics! Best Practices for Ethics Curriculum in Public Relations with panelists Tiffany Gallicano and Elizabeth Toth;
• 1 p.m. on Sept. 21– Supporting Ethical Journalism with Nancy Weaver, APR, internal communications manager at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and Lynn Walsh, journalist, KNSD and President-elect for the Society of Professional Journalists.
• 8 p.m. on Sept. 21 – a New Pros Chat, Social Media & Ethics: Common Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them
  
  

Hosting the chats will be Marlene S. Neill, Ph.D., APR, Assistant Professor, Baylor University, Department of Journalism, Public Relations & New Media (@neillpr).

And finally, new professionals and associate members should watch their email boxes for a survey from PRSA National titled “How Millennials View Ethics in Public Relations.” The survey is funded by a grant from the Arthur W. Page Center and will feature input from both new professionals and associate members.