Thursday, March 28, 2024

Righting wrongs in public relations

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Road Development Agency Public Relations Manager Loyce Saili
talks to Ng’andu Consulting resident engineer Stephen Mulubila when
RDA conducted road works inspection for the Kitwe-Ndola dual
carriageway

By Chanda Mfula

A lot of what is touted around as public relations does not exactly match the more widely accepted professional and academic views about the practice. Here, I look at a few of the transgressions that have all but eroded the integrity of public relations and then propose a considered view of what it should be and how it should be practiced, if only to restore some of the practice’s lost reputation.

At the beginning of 2017, President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana attracted the type of publicity no one would ever want especially during what is supposed to be a proud and historic moment: he had just won the presidential election and was basking in glory and apparent resolve to move the West African country forward. Unfortunately, a few hours after his inauguration, evidence emerged that his inaugural speech contained uncredited portions from inauguration speeches of two American presidents. The official explanation for this embarrassing plagiarism was that the speechwriter only ‘forgot’ to credit the quotes. Few believed this explanation. I did not believe it either, but plagiarism in Ghana and elsewhere, along with a whole lot of other unprofessional conduct and incompetence, is just a symptom of bigger problems dogging communications and, particularly, public relations as a professional practice within which speechwriting and speechmaking are only a part.

Firstly, there is a tendency to view public relations as ad hoc to the needs of organisations despite ever-present evidence of the strategic benefits its proper practice can bring and the long-term damage its neglect can inflict on organisations and entire establishments. Such failure to understand the strategic importance of public relations in organisations is reflected in the thinking that anybody can do the job regardless of their background or lack thereof. I have heard an African president appoint a head of government communications, saying “I have decided to appoint you in this job because you like talking”. As much as I want to believe this was just a joke, there are many leaders and managers who believe public relations only involves ‘talking’ (in good English) and thus cannot see the need for special skills, planning and strategy because somewhere along the line, they fail to see how that ‘talking’ can make or break an organisation, that is, how it impacts the strategic objectives of the organisation.

The plagiarism found in President Akufo-Addo’s inaugural speech was blamed on his director of communications, Eugene Arhin, who had put the speech together. Arhin had no prior professional or academic training in a communications field or at least any remotely related social science at the time he wrote the speech. In fact, his academic background is in natural science, having graduated from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Materials Engineering. To be fair to Arhin, there may be many highly talented practitioners who have done exceptionally well without any academic or professional background in public relations. However, it is during such moments of failure, and at a critical time, as happened in Ghana, that one begins to appreciate that public relations jobs must be given to individuals with a firm grounding in the theory, practice and ethics of the field. The best indicators of this grounding are academic qualifications and/or professional experience, both of which Arhin did not possess at the time he plagiarized Bill Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s speeches. In fact, many of the most successful practitioners who took up a career in public relations despite receiving education in a different field have had to make a deliberate effort to grasp the theory and practice of the trade. Edward Bernays, regarded as the father of public relations in the United States of America, graduated with a degree in agriculture but chose public relations as his career. Bernays amassed a lot of expertise in public relations, in turn making a respectable contribution to the body of knowledge in the field through research, writing and lecturing.

A trend which has been around for some time now in Zambia is the hiring of people with only a street view of public relations, who may not appreciate the alleys, residences and backyards of the profession. Such practitioners can be found in corporate entities, government, political parties and even nonprofits. With only street knowledge, it is among these practitioners where one finds those who think public relations means showing their faces on TV or issuing media statements every so often. There are many people with such titles as ‘public relations manager’, ‘head of corporate affairs’ or ‘director of communications’, who think their main (if not the only) job is to be spokesperson of the organisation, and they will not hesitate to make happenstance media appearances themselves at every opportunity. Contrast this with Bernays’ career, in which he operated in the shadows (save for the controversy around his work) from where he scored many public relations successes, earning a sizable fortune by the time he died at 103 years of age. As Dinan Miller once observed, public relations practitioners are ‘technicians’ in the backroom who ensure that organisations that have hired them are able to pursue their goals. In short, effective public relations people do not seek publicity for themselves but use the range of tools at their disposal, such as media, lobbying and an array of communications, to accomplish the goals of their organisations.

For organisations oblivious of the strategic role of public relations, the temptation to hire quacks is huge, simply because quacks are readily and cheaply available since they have no skills nor qualifications to bargain with. Nevertheless, this hurts organisations and the profession in the long term. People without education nor experience lack the necessary professional insight and can do worse harm than plagiarism to organisations. They may, out of ignorance, say the wrong things to the media, or may fail to manage potentially damaging publicity before it happens. There is just no substitute for training and experience to augment talent.

Of course, some organisations are better-informed about the criticality of public relations to organisational strategy and success. A serious misconception among many of such organisations, however, is the thinking that any journalist or person with media background can do the job. While it is true that journalists have a better chance of excelling in public relations, half the time they will require additional training or retraining because the dynamics in the practice of journalism differ from those in public relations. The relationship between the two is that journalism uses the (mass) media as its main channel and so does much of public relations.

However, (ethical) journalism is more interested in reporting information as it has happened and places a premium on values such as impartiality, whereas public relations may only be interested in information that resonates and connects an organisation with its stakeholders and the public. While journalism aspires to serve the public, public relations aim to serve the public to the organisation or save the organisation from the public.

Therefore, a clear conflict of interest potentially exists that may inhibit the transitioning of an individual from being an accomplished journalist to becoming an effective public relations operative. This perhaps explains why some of the best journalists have gone on to become ineffective public relations practitioners once they made the switch. Not all journalists can practice public relations; just like not all public relations professionals can practice journalism. What is true, however, is that in Zambia, and perhaps much of Africa and the world, public relations jobs are more rewarding financially than most journalism positions, and so many journalists relish the switch, regardless of their professional views, abilities or skills.
Another problem that has beset public relations, if I must take Zambia as a case in point, relates to very poor education and training exacerbated by the emergence of poorly regulated mickey mouse colleges. Nearly every tall building in Cairo Road in Lusaka has a college or two that will tell you they offer, among others, a diploma or higher in public relations. There is no assurance of any quality control. With the education sector in Zambia continuing to grapple with the problem of standards and regulation generally, ‘colleges’ and ‘universities’ are now popping up like corner shops in residential areas. I have met many BA ‘graduates’ especially from private universities who literally cannot recall basic theory in public relations, yet these are the people going on to take up public relations jobs in government and the corporate world.

Furthermore, as hinted earlier, there are many misperceptions of what public relations is, by both organisations and practitioners. This, in a way, is both a cause and a consequence of problems such as the failure to appreciate the strategic importance of the field, hiring of wrong people and poor training of practitioners. Some people isolate only one or two aspects – such as media relations, public information dissemination or the role of spokesperson – and make them appear as though they constitute the entire public relations function. A few years ago, I met someone at a highly-rated hotel in Livingstone, who introduced themselves as the public relations manager of the hotel. When I asked what their main role was, they spoke in glowing terms about how they have to pick up guests at the airport, attend to customer queries and perform other duties assigned by the hotel manager. Clearly, these routine activities are related to public relations, especially in a hotel. However, the most important duties of a public relations ‘manager’ seemed to be missing. There was no mention of their involvement in planning or formulating public relations strategies in alignment with the organisational goals. They did not even seem to know the strategic goals of the organisation!

So, in concluding this discussion, let me attempt to affirm what has come to be generally accepted as ‘public relations’ within scholarship so as to provide a compass for its proper practice. From the most basic of definitions I have read, I would aver that: public relations is a function that sits at the strategic core of organisations, where it serves the purpose of building sustainable and mutually beneficial relationships between the organisation and its stakeholders (publics).

Such a definition is most likely to attract as much unanimity as it would breed disquiet. For instance, do organisations really build relationships that benefit their stakeholders? In practice, many organisations have acted more in their self-interest and used public relations as a vehicle for profiteering. Because building relationships involves communication, and the media happen to be the main channel of mass and effective communication, some views align public relations to media relations. This is where the majority of people who claim to be public relations practitioners can be found. They maintain a media mailing list to which they forward mundane press releases and go to the media to mechanically speak on behalf of their organisations particularly during times of special events, promotion of new products or to fend off bad publicity or manage a crisis.
As a disciple of Kantian philosophy, I have always found a home in the deontological value of the two-way symmetrical view of public relations propounded by James Grunig to the effect that as a strategic function in an organisation, public relations must focus on building sustainable relationships that are mutually beneficial between an organisation and its stakeholders. In other words, public relations should aim for a win-win situation for both the organisation and its customers, and other publics it serves. In effect, the truth, along with genuine intentions, is a very important virtue in the practice of public relations. Unfortunately, however, there are many practitioners who tell ‘official’ lies to save the face of their organisation or engage in half-truths and exaggerations in which they play up the organisation’s strengths and play down its weaknesses, especially in political communication as well as government-to-public communication. The problem with such a strategy is that it is hardly sustainable in the long term, and once the truth finally arrives in the public domain, the damage on the organisation can be hard to fix.

Public relations anchored in the Kantian spirit recognises the need to explain both the positive and the negative truths about the organisation to its publics just because it is morally right to do so. Besides, this approach promotes mutual respect and trust between the organisation and its publics, something even consequentialists will find irresistible as a strategy. In the end, it is more important, sustainable and beneficial for the organisation in the long run to speak out of genuine concern for its publics and build understanding of both its strengths and weaknesses by truthfully explaining its position, no matter how bad, than to pull a ‘public relations’ stunt to cover-up its mess, because such covers are easy to blow in any case. A quick rider here, though, is that good public relations does not just end at an organisation openly admitting its failures or weaknesses, but goes further to get the organisation to clearly demonstrate to its stakeholders its ability and willingness to address those failures and weaknesses and the actual steps being taken to do so. This way of practicing public relations encourages organisations to act with integrity, genuineness, excellence as well as care and due diligence in their dealings with their stakeholders, and does a great deal in winning public sympathy, understanding and support even in the organisation’s moments of weakness or failure. This view in effect dismisses propaganda, subterfuges, sophistry and other tactics deployed by even some of the most famed practitioners of public relations including Bernays and Ivy Lee.
However, some schools of not-so-well-developed thought have been quick to dismiss the above approach to public relations as utopian and far from pragmatic, despite a growing body of evidence that even in its apparently ideal-typical Grunigian application, it has scored long-term benefits for organisations while equally benefitting the organisation’s stakeholders and wider society. Organisations that have not only readily admitted their failures, but have gone on to show their willingness and positive actions to right their wrongs have retained public confidence and support much more than those who engage in concealment of their transgressions and wait to be whistle-blown out. For instance, most organisations that have acknowledged and abandoned ecologically harmful methods of production and adopted clean energy and other environmentally friendly practices have achieved more than public goodwill, having gone on to report healthy and growing bottom lines.

To get to a point where such public relations can be practiced more, organisations will have to begin to appreciate the strategic importance of public relations as well as hire and reward qualified personnel or properly train those they have already hired. Public relations education also needs cleaning up as does all areas of education in Zambia. There is need for standards and quality control. A regulatory body is a big need, while the existing professional body of public relations practitioners needs to get more involved in the issues of quality control, training, hiring, ethics, as well as research and development within the field.

The author is a communications, media and public relations researcher and strategist.
Twitter: @ChandaMfula

8 COMMENTS

  1. Chanda a lot of this Novel you have written is insightful and good for you.
    Congratulations to you.

    But why don’t you spend time as well trying to get a PhD?

    Many Thanks

    BB2014,2016

    • Good article. however I have one comment that I wish to disagree with the writer. if someone has a degree in whatever field, he/she is expected to cite sources. this is a normal practice for nay field of study.

  2. Too many quacks claiming to be journalists and public relations pros. This article is spot on. Lusaka Times we need more of such intellectual stuff not all the time its lungu and hakainde

  3. Chanda Mfula is 100% right. Very insightful piece of scholastic expression. As for Mushota, let your capacity to reason logically and the ability to be useful to yourself manifest the quantum of PhD you claim to have earned.

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