DISCUSSION KEY FOR CASE #3
Illegal or Unethical Recordings
Case Summary:
An influential and volatile leader of an environmental group has been blogging about powerful executives who manipulate regulatory decisions related to air and water quality. The agency you work for represents a large utility that provides electrical services throughout a tri-state area. One of the utility’s plants is almost 50 years old and is located three miles from a large lake that several cities depend on for water. A chemical treatment used in the early years of this plant’s operation is now known to be a carcinogen that affects air and water. Your client has taken responsibility and is cleaning up all residue of the chemical, employing best practices at every step and doing more than regulations require. Though the environmental leader has not directly accused your client of bad acts, the blogs are causing the utility and its key executives to be viewed in a negative light by elected officials, journalists and the community. The environmental leader has asked to meet with your client’s chief executive officer. The CEO is prepared but you have reasons to be concerned that the environmental leader will misrepresent information provided during the meeting. You want to record the meeting but don’t want to make an issue of it unless there is a problem later, so you plan to record it without informing your client or the environmental leader.
General Guidance:
For information about the ethical and legal implications for recording conversations, see Professional Standards Advisory 18 – Illegal Recordings:
- Define the specific ethical issue and/or conflict.
Is it ethical (and/or legal, which may vary by state) to secretly record a conversation or interview without the express knowledge and consent of all of the parties to the conversation?
- Identify internal/external factors that may influence the decision.
Do local, state or federal laws require a particular decision?
What do my company and professional values, policies or procedures require?
What action do I believe is in the public’s best interest?
What action do I believe is in my client’s and my firm’s best interest?
3. Identify key values.
- Honesty. We adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent and in communicating with the public.
- Expertise. We acquire and responsibly use specialized knowledge and experience. We advance the profession through continued professional development, research and education. We build mutual understanding, credibility and relationships among a wide array of institutions and audiences.
- Fairness. We deal fairly with clients, employers, competitors, peers, vendors, the media and the general public. We respect all opinions and support the right of free expression.
- Identify the publics who may be affected by the decision and define the public relations professional’s obligation to each.
The two parties most likely to be affected by your behavior are your client’s CEO and the environmental leader, since neither of them would be aware of the recording.
If knowledge of the recording should come to light, it is likely that the environmental leader, the media and the general public would believe that the CEO was aware of and gave his or her permission for the recording, which could have grave impact on his or her reputation and could have legal ramifications, depending on the state laws in effect. As a PR representative, it is your obligation to be open and honest with your clients and to not engage in any unethical or illegal activity on their behalf, whether they are aware of it or not. To the environmental leader, you owe basic honesty and fairness and should disclose your desire to record the conversation.
Your own PR firm and its employees could also be negatively affected by your actions with potential legal liabilities and damage to your firm’s reputation.
- Select ethical principles to guide the decision-making process.
- Free Flow of Information. Preserve the integrity of the process of communication. Be honest and accurate in all communications.
- Disclosure of Information. Be honest and accurate in all communications. Avoid deceptive practices.
- Safeguarding Confidences. Client trust requires appropriate protection of confidential and private information.
- Conflicts of Interest. Avoid actions and circumstances that may appear to compromise good business judgment or create a conflict between personal and professional interests.
6. Make a decision and justify.
Recording conversations and interviews via audio and/or video is a tool long used by public relations professionals and the media to ensure accuracy in reporting and as a memory aid. However, in addition to the ethical implications of recording someone without their knowledge and consent, you must also consider applicable state and federal laws that govern when you may legally record another individual.Recording telephone calls or in-person conversations without proper consent may expose you not only to the risk of criminal prosecution, but also potentially give an injured party a civil claim for monetary damages against the individual doing the recording.
It is not unreasonable to want to record important conversations or interviews, but even in states where the law requires that only one party be aware of the recording, the ethical decision would be to get written consent to record from all parties to the conversation in advance and to get oral consent after the recording device is turned on. If consent is not given, your options are either to proceed with the conversation without the recording or to advise the client that, given the environmental leader’s reluctance to be “on the record,” it might not be wise to hold the conversation after all.
Under no circumstances should you proceed with a secret recording. The public relations professional’s greatest loyalty is to his/her client/employer, and you should do nothing that could hurt the client’s reputation or credibility. Sometimes that requires wise counsel to the client who may ask you to do something that is less than honest. But in this case, you would be the one undertaking the dishonest act and doing something that could undermine the client’s goal of building a relationship with the environmental leader and ultimately contributing to the decline of the public’s trust in the client and the CEO. In addition, if this action took place in a state that requires that all parties be aware of a recorded conversation, your actions would create serious legal liabilities for your PR firm, the client and the CEO.