PR Week reports that trust in PR is coming under scrutiny as a result of the Levenson Inquiry. This has been hailed as a watershed moment in the scrutiny of the media’s ethics and PR Week reveals that many public relations professionals are concerned that the industry’s name could be tarnished by these shenanigans.
Perhaps the PR industry’s concerns will simply see the end of ‘spin doctors’ or ‘smoke and mirrors’ – two phrases I am sure most people will have heard of, or indeed used themselves when referring to PR.
One person quoted in the PR Week article said that ‘the new language of PR is authenticity’. I can’t believe that it wasn’t before! Perhaps this is because I have learnt my PR skills in a more down to earth, business-to-business world, where we tell it like it is.
I have always advised my clients that honesty is the best policy. You’ll get found out in the end, creating a mountain out of what was once a molehill. Perhaps a too simplistic approach for the higher echelons in the consumer and big business PR world, but it looks like a more complex approach is coming back to bite the PR industry on the bum!
