PR has a duty to tell the truth, No ?

A few days ago the University played host to an exciting debate titled ‘PR has a duty to tell the truth’. Amongst the speakers were PR-guru Max Clifford and PR man turned priest George Pitcher. The motion of the house was defeated, but its difficult to say if that was actually the general consensus or that people were more awed by Max Clifford’s enigmatic style of putting a ‘spin’ on things. Since the room was filled with PR students and practitioners it is safe to assume that most of them believe that they need NOT tell the truth for PR purposes. In fact the word ‘spin’ reveals how PR has more of a duty to twist, gloss-over and manipulate the facts rather than tell it like it is. However I do have a few observations and arguments of my own that contribute to this debate. Interestingly a lot of the crises’ that PR has to manage or salvage arise out of the revelation of what maybe called the truth. This can be explained by taking the example of Coca-cola and Pepsi in India. They faced a collective crisis recently when the ‘truth’ about the colas containing a high level of toxic chemicals and pesticides was revealed by the Centre for Environment and Science (CSE) . So what does one do when your duty to tell the truth is what is causing vast damage to your image and your sales? Well, Coke and Pepsi responded by denying everything flatly and getting celebrities to endorse their safety claims. They also issued a bunch of alternative test reports and had everyone believe what they wanted to prove was the truth. So in a case like this the whole concept of truth gets warped because Coke and Pepsi are back on track and going strong in spite of once being accused of negatively impacting the Indian nation’s health. Similarly, signed as the new face of Yardley cosmetics, actress Helena Bonham Carter, unthinkingly once told a magazine journalist that she didn’t wear make-up. So the ‘truth’ was out, what could be worse PR for the company if the endorser herself claimed that she never used the stuff? So it has to be agreed that in a situation like this, Helena should probably have lied and attributed her beauty to Yardley cosmetics, after all that is what they are paying her for. Although there are many situations in which the truth works much better than anything else. Microsoft, in the wake of an Apple Computer ad campaign to woo Windows users, briefly ran a similar ad of its own. An ad, titled "Confessions of a Mac to PC convert," was posted to Microsoft's Web site. The article purports to be a first-person account of a writer who decided to switch from an Apple Macintosh computer to a PC running Windows XP. The writer was quoted as saying. "I like the Microsoft Windows XP operating system enough to change my whole computing world around”. It seemed like a really good idea until CNET News uncovered the fact that it was a PR stunt by Microsoft rather than a real person writing the testimonial. Apparently the PR consultants to Microsoft were not all that techno-savvy as they should have been and Microsoft has since been the subject of extensively framed online forums for the ‘lie’ and their reputation has thus been sullied. Therefore truth or no truth, in the words of Max Clifford, ‘PR has a duty only and only towards their client’.