Week 6

I think the key points to remember from this week’s readings were:

• To ensure the quality of PR outcomes, practitioners need to take an active role in developing strategies to minimise the legal risks associated with the functions and roles they perform.
• PR areas- Communication, advisory/counselling and business/management.
• Practitioners need to be aware of the tort of negligence (duty of care to clients & the general public), the tort of defamation (outlaws unjustified publications which have a tenancy to harm an individual's reputation), contempt law (contracts), international property law (trademarks, copyright, confidential info). Simply Common and Statute Law.
• PR decisions must be made in context of the 'legal environment.'
• PR relies on good reputations, positive images and strong relationships. These matters must be factored into the cost of any legal action. Practitioners need to develop good working relations with their legal advisers. May need to 'negotiate' appropriate responses to legal problems.
• PR practitioners help to protect an organisation's reputation which is one of the most important parts of their jobs.
  
• When organising campaigns and lobbying for support for a campaign, care should be taken to verify claims to ensure they are not misleading and deceptive. They must abide by The Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth).
• Any practitioner engaged in litigation public relations has a duty to be aware of the legal status of any case and give advice following these laws.
  
• Contract law plays a pivotal role in PR. Contracts define the relationship between parties and are used in all facets of PRs from employment of staff to the supply of materials to fulfil a campaign.
  
• Ethics refers to the personal values which underpin the behaviour and moral choices made by the individual in response to a specific situation. They are standards of integrity. Business ethics is about prioritising moral values for an organisation and ensuring its behaviours are aligned with those values.
• PR practitioners need to be concerned with their own personal and professional ethics as well as with the institutional ethics of the company for which they work.
  
• 'fathers' of PR- Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays- tried to legitimise PR practice.
  
• Advocacy- is the act of publicly representing an individual, organisation or idea with the object of persuading targeted audiences to look favourably upon, or to accept the POV of the individual, organisation or the idea. Lead to debate about ethics.
• Corporate monitor- means they need to interpret and guide organisation's policies, programs and actions to match public expectations.
  
• Corporate conscience- to serve as the moral keeper for both its communications and actions. Control the flow of good and bad news. Encourage truth-telling.
• Ethical dilemma levels- interpersonal, organisational and stakeholder.
• The basic ethical framework that practitioners need to follow is to observe their professional association's code and the code of conduct of their workplace.
• PRIA- The Public Relations Institute of Australia. Governed by a 15 point Code of Ethics.
• MEAA- The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Journalists Code of Ethics.
• PRSA- The Public Relations Society of America. Universal values for ethical behaviour.
  
• Codes of conduct- for organisation's to guide the behaviour of their employees and suppliers.
  

The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that there is such complexity and diversity in the public relations legal environment. I now realise how important it is the have/give good legal advice from a public relations perspective. I think that organisation's should move towards developing a legal strategy to achieve the best practice in potential problem areas. The reading stated that 'best-practice' public relations serves the public interest by developing mutual understanding between organisation's and publics. I agree with this statement and believe public interests should always come first.
I also thought more about the need to have codes of ethics for individual organisation's and also the need to follow national and international ethics codes.