This is the first of many blogs in which I shall be voicing my opinion on how truth is one of the most confusing and misinterpreted words in the dictionary. I am a Public Relations student at the University of Lincoln and for an assignment I was faced with the question
“Honest and responsible regard for the public interest is not the same as telling the truth.” Discuss in the context of the profession of Public Relations
This got me thinking, how do you tell the truth as well as keep in line with all the other ethical pillars; veracity, non-malfeasance, beneficence, confidentiality and fairness. Webster’s Dictionary defines trust as:
“A confident reliance on the integrity, veracity or justice of another confidence; faith”
This intrigued me and I began to think about the relationship between truth and trust, if we do not trust someone then automatically we are sceptical when they tell us something, so in order to gain that trust it is important to make the listener want to trust in you, this is often done by being likable, if you are a confident, friendly character what you say is likely to be believed. Is it in the public’s interest to be someone who you can trust? Of course, If you are in front of a crowd trying to inform them and they do not trust you there is no point even trying whereas if you are being received in a positive way they are likely to pay more attention and believe what you are saying (even if you are leaving some details out)
Truth is something that is come across in everyday life and as an ordinary person the truth is not as pressurised as if you are in the public eye, if you tell a little white lie as an ordinary public citizen, as many of us have done when a friend asks “does my bum look big in this?” it is not seen as a big deal, whereas if you, as a public relations practitioner, tell a little white lie and then it gets found out there is public uproar. Although there is the argument that what the media says goes out to millions as Humphrey Bogart would say in respect to the media:
“Worth a hill of beans”
Truth is always in public interest, although it is not a necessity. When you think of truth it can often be brutal and I believe that it is a judgement call if your instance as a personal example I found one of my friends boyfriends in an extremely compromising position with another girl … no details needed, I then had the awful decision of whether to tell her or not as I knew it would break her heart. If I did not tell her then this awful man would get away with it, the decision was then to be brutally honest and hurt her or let him get away with it? In the end I gave him the option to tell her himself or I would. So I can completely sympathise when people struggle to tell the complete truth all the time.
I went on to look at the CIPR definition of Public Relations http://www.cipr.co.uk/content/policy-resources/careers-pr/whatispr and when I read through I realised there was no mention of truth; it seems that their definition is focusing more on your reputation and the way that you treat your client. So as a budding PR practitioner by definition I have no duty to tell the truth as long as I’m doing a brilliant job with a fantastic reputation, but in my opinion in order to get this reputation you have to come across as a trustworthy and truthful person. That’s my plan anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment