Anumber of situations can raise ethical questions in the public relations business. resolving these situations often involve sifting through a number of factors including your philosophical orientation, your personal belief system, and your understanding of professional standards. what ethical concerns are raised in the following situations? what would you do in each situation?
your company has a great product, and the management wants a higher profile on such consumer review sites as yelp and amazon. several freelance writers contact you with an offer. they will post multiple favorable reviews of your product under various anonymous names and only charge $25 for every posted review.
the president of the company decides it would be “good pr” and visibility for her to have a personal twitter account and write a weekly blog. she, of course, doesn’t have much time for this so she asks you, the public relations director, to “ghost-write” the tweets and the blog in her name.
your public relations firm has a luxury resort hotel in hawaii as a client. it’s important to get articles about the hotel in various leading travel magazines. one idea is to invite influential travel writers and their families for a one-week stay at the hotel, all expenses paid, with the understanding that they would write a favorable article about their experience.