PR Straight Talk

(The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth/Part II)

by Mike Schwager

[excerpted from PR Week]

Recently, a young man was interviewed on CNN about what he and other young people would be looking for in the responses of presidential candidates on a YOU-TUBE debate. He responded, “One word – authenticity.”

People want authenticity. The truth. It’s the truth that is needed for a democratic electorate to make intelligent decisions. It’s the truth that is needed for a consuming public to understand the truth of the products and services that are arrayed before them in the marketplace. It’s the truth that is required for donors to make effective decisions about the charities that appeal to them for money.

The media has a solemn responsibility to do their best to report the truth – the truth of facts and events as they happen, and to uncover the underlying truth of policymakers’ intentions and motivations that propel facts and events into being.

Truth in journalism is a standard sometimes actualized; but not always. It can become a “version of the truth” by not always reporting accurately enough, or deeply enough, on what lies behind facts and events in terms of what motivates decisions. It can also be guised as journalism, yet in actuality foster propaganda – as we know from so many of the talk show radio hosts who have a clear agenda of their own – often a neo-conservative agenda presented as truth by exploiting, for example, people’s sense of patriotism.

Moving from journalism to PR, public relations had its roots in those who were masters of creativity, but also of manipulation. That’s the truth too.

I believe that creativity and honesty can be mutually compatible bedfellows in public relations. This is not to say that public relations professionals aren’t advocates. Of course we are. We represent clients who’ve hired us to communicate their services, products, books or issues to the public through the media. To the extent that we represent clients with legitimate products and services that minimally don’t hurt anyone, and optimally are useful, we can help contribute to the public good. Gaining goodwill for our clients is our purpose. When we represent a stance on issues or information that enrich public understanding, we contribute to the public interest.

If we practice our craft with the conscious intention to deceive, to manipulate public opinion with false or specious information, or unworthy products or services, we do not contribute to the public interest or welfare. Public relations then becomes something inauthentic, something not deserving of our respect.

When Edward Bernays, one of the fathers of public relations, wrote in his famous 1928 book Propaganda that the manipulation of public opinion was a necessary part of democracy, he was certainly arguing for an understanding of the truth of how social psychology worked, and the machinations of the human unconscious – but he was certainly NOT arguing the objective truth of “straight shooting” in communication based on facts. I also doubt if he was a big fan of the democratic process, which it seems to me must honor the inalienable rights of the individual as one who is entitled to make decisions based on a clear and centered understanding, either rationally or by intuition of the objective facts and of candidates’ and politicians’ stance on issues.

Bernays’ uncle was the great psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. From Freud he learned about the power of the unconscious – and formulated strategies designed to manipulate the unconscious.

I met Edward Bernays. It was in the late ‘80s when he was quite an elderly man, but still amazingly sharp, even brilliant. I hosted a show on WOR Radio in New York City called Mike Talk, which aired Sunday nights. It was clear to me that Mr. Bernays felt that manipulation was needed in society, to mold the irrational herd mentality that characterized it.

“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?”

Mr. Bernays wrote about this in his trailblazing books, Propaganda and Crystallizing Public Opinion, and in an essay entitled, “The Engineering of Consent.”

A favorite technique of his was to use third party experts to influence and establish credibility for his clients in indirect ways. To make the case for the promotion of bacon, he ran a survey of doctors who agreed that people needed to eat hearty breakfasts. He sent these results to five thousand doctors, along with information about bacon and eggs as a hearty breakfast.

Edward Bernays did not view his manipulativeness as unethical. Just the contrary. He said that a public relations counsel “must never accept a retainer or assume a position which puts his duty to (his clients) above his duty to society.”

He believed that the p.r. counsel must act for the common good of society. In Propaganda he wrote: “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.”

Yet Bernays was depicted by some, like Marlen Pew, as the “Young Machiavelli of Our Time.” He was seen by others, however, as a genius in combining social science with psychology.

Interestingly, Mr. Bernays, who was Jewish, was horrified when he learned that the head of Nazi propaganda, Goebbels, had diligently absorbed and applied the content of books such as Propaganda and Crystallizing Public Opinion in Hitler’s campaign against the Jews.

I believe we’re in an age where a view of humanity as dark and “herd-like” should not govern public relations. While human nature has the capacity for both good and evil, and while humans can be persuaded by many forces, both conscious and unconscious, I believe we must take the high road by simply telling people the truth about the products, services and issues we represent. That presupposes that we are in good conscience representing nondeceptive, truthful clients.

This is not to exclude the use of creativity and creative techniques in communicating messages on behalf of our clients. But creativity should not be employed to manipulate through lies or deception. It should rather be used to energize and make more interesting the story we convey.

My own view is that manipulating the darker forces of human nature is inappropriate. Instead, as public relations professionals dedicated to truth in communications, we must and can take the higher road. What is that road? Here are my Ten Commandments of Sane Public Relations Values:

1. All human beings are intelligent. Create campaigns that honor this intelligence.

2. Tell the truth. You can be creative and tell the truth. The two are not mutually exclusive.

3. Appeal to people’s better instincts – to the “better angels” of our nature.

4. Understand that we are one human family on this planet – and that among our highest values, all humans cherish: the air we breath, wholesome food on the table, comfortable living habitats, a good job with good wages, their children and the health and well-being of their children, a good education, love, respect, the ability to fulfill one’s unique potential, a sense of caring community, the right to be free as long as we are also responsible.

5. Talk to people as you would want to be talked to yourself. Create messages and campaigns that help, support, inform and entertain people as you would wish to be helped, supported, informed and entertained yourself.

6. Represent companies, organizations, associations, governments, authors and celebrities who operate legitimately, in the best interests of the public interest.

7. Every human is entitled to basic human rights – the right to live without intolerance, persecution or control; the right to a decent living income; the right to be treated with respect; and the right to fulfill their dreams.

8. Encourage your clients to support in spirit and actuality causes that uplift humanity: that alleviate poverty, that affirms human rights for all, that advocate a clean environment, that espouse reverence for life, that help children, that promote healthier lifestyles, that fight disease, that unite us rather than divide us, that promote education and literacy, that encourage creativity and the fulfillment of human potential.

9. Represent life-affirming companies that make good and healthy products, that provide services in the public interest, that are ethical and honest.

10. Life is precious. Respect yourself, your neighbors, all other humans and the other life forms on our planet. Don’t hurt anybody. If you know a potential client is manufacturing an inferior product, or rendering a faulty service, or promulgating an issue that is de facto or potentially harmful to people, don’t represent them. Period.

To those in our profession – or outside our profession – who say this is too naïve a view about the values necessary to support our business or conduct ourselves – I say, “You’re outmoded. Time to embrace these values and make public relations the honorable profession it can and should be.”

The world is converging through the miracle of technology. Let’s not let the human heart, or the human right for the whole truth, run behind. Is journalism performing its highest calling when it does not probe more deeply for the truth behind events or challenge questionable policies? And what good is public relations if it promotes inauthenticity and a world that doesn’t work?

Mike Schwager is a writer and veteran public relations/public affairs counselor, practitioner and media trainer based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Websites: www.mediamavens.com, and www.TVtraining.tv. E-mail: moschwager@aol.com