Chapter 4: Loyalties

I found this chapter to be extremely relevant to what I perceive as most peoples interpretation of ethical dilemmas. We are tested of our loyalties on a daily basis in our personal lives. Who to tell what, if we have a right to, etc are all issues that have come up in class discussion before. The long discussion we had the first day of class over if the girl should tell her friend that her boyfriend had cheated, dealt with exactly the sort of problems this chapter touched on. The obvious differences though are the application of this type of thought to a professional and media related background. 

As I've discussed before, my thoughts arising from my introduction to the professional ethics of PR seem to find endless fodder to reflect on in these recent chapters. In the reading, the idea of trust is important both in an inter-company sense as well as in a inter-public sense as well. Loyalties to ones company (or client) are incredibly important without a doubt, but PR is more than that. PR is a profession that places equal, if not more, emphasis on cultivating a rapport between the client and it's target publics. Where as advertisers may not feel the direct backlash of losing the trust of the public, PR professionals feel the heat and are chiefly responsible for cooling things down. Thus becoming loyal (as much as one can) to the target public can be incredibly beneficial and important to anyone hoping to succeed in the PR business.

This concept really interrelates with the rest of the tenets of loyalty that the book touches on as well. For example, the importance of avoiding abuse of power etc is essential to anyone hoping to gain favorable attitudes in the realm of publicity. One slip up or scandal and it can turn into a PR nightmare, sometimes so messy that it can’t be fixed.

Another issue that I connected with in the reading was the case study of Hillary Clinton. I remember the controversy over the picture and found it interesting that it was included in this realm of ethics. I suppose it makes sense seeing as the photograph was media related but I never saw it as an ethical issue. The fact that the magazine that released the photo was not a huge media outlet is irrelevant in my opinion. As the book explained those major media outlets DID get their hands on the altered photograph and it became a big-ticket item. In terms of the ideology behind not releasing the photographs of Bin Laden’s body, I think the media outlets were trying to be sensitive and tread lightly. It was obviously huge news that he had been killed but surrounding that with sensationalism would make certain news outlets seem cheap in my opinion. On top of this the international retribution that could come from releasing them could’ve been dangerous.