Ethics of Getting Positive PR

August 15th, 2008 at 04:57pm Carrie Skogsberg

One of the most difficult things about being a PR professional is you can’t control the journalist writing the story. Even if you hit all of your message points in an interview, act accommodating to their requests for interviews and information, and have a positive story to tell, the writer could still turn around and twist the story to have a negative angle.

We read this week that a PR professional in Baltimore decided to perform a major faux pas of PR ethics this week when she offered to send reporters on expense-paid trips to several destinations in return for positive stories. The story was reported by the writer who received the offer in writing from the PR professional. While many PR people offer journalists freebies such as product samples, trips to resorts (when the resort is doing its own press trip) or other gifts to garner a positive image, the PR professional can never expect the writer to accept all of those free gifts and give them a shining, positive story in return. In fact many journalists, especially at newspapers, do not accept any freebies whatsoever so they can claim their stories are completely unbiased.

So to increase your odds of gaining the most positive PR possible, act as a reliable source for the journalist while hitting your message home in every interview. Hopefully they will pick up on the positive vibe you’re putting out there and it will appear in their story.

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