Why Does PRSA Care About Presidential Campaigns?

On September 10, PRSA issued a Media Advisory, announcing that it has submitted formal challenges to the McCain and Obama campaigns to commit to the highest standards of ethical practice in every facet of their campaign communications. Since then, there has been a healthy discussion about the topic. Most of the feedback has been very positive but a handful of bloggers have questioned why PRSA is taking this issue on. Well, here are just some of the reasons...

• PRSA has received considerable member support for this effort.
• Ethics are important in any industry, but especially in one that has its credibility regularly called into question.
• Maybe the candidates don’t care, but the people care. If nothing is ventured, nothing is gained.
• Even if PRSA doesn’t achieve its ultimate goal, there’s honor in fighting for important principles and value in raising awareness of an important issue, e.g., respectful and honorable political discourse. We do know this effort – if nothing else – is generating buzz and discussion both positive and negative.
• The candidates aren’t members of PRSA; however, they don’t need to be PRSA members and don’t need to “sign” anything to subscribe to an ethical code of conduct. What’s more, they were asked to sign a non-member pledge.
• It’s not the responsibility of PRSA to bring the candidates to heel; it’s our responsibility to advocate for ethical communications and let the voters hold the candidates responsible.
• This is only one aspect of PRSA’s advocacy campaign, that also includes taking public positions on the use of front groups, paid political spokesmen and other communications ethics issues, including those raised by the memoir of former presidential Press Secretary Scott McClellan, anonymous Internet postings following the juicycampus.com revelations, and the “faux press conference” held by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) following the California wildfires late last year.
• For an organization with 32,000 members, it’s difficult to achieve unanimous agreement on any one issue. But, if you agree that honest, open and truthful communications are important in politics and elsewhere in society, and have ideas for how we can advocate for this more effectively, you’re invited to help.

Questions or comments can be posted here and/or can be directed to pr@prsa.org.