Burson Fumbles Facebook Flap
As noted, there is no more respected individual in the practice of public relations than Harold Burson. The agency he founded, Burson-Marsteller, has a long and proud tradition of ethical practice.But in the spring of 2011, Burson-Marsteller was caught red-handed in an embarrassing scheme to make a client's competitor look bad. The fact thatthe client was Facebook and the competitor was Google-two of the most powerful names in the social media world.
It all started when two Burson staff members-both former journalists-approached daily newspapers and Internet bloggers about authoring articles critical of a feature on Google's Gmail service called
"Social Circle." The social media feature said the Burson representatives were guilty of trampling the privacy of millions of users and violating federal fair trade rules.
When the bloggers pressed Burson to reveal its client, Burson refused. One blogger was so enraged with the Burson whispering campaign that he postedBurson's entire pitch online. The blogger reported that Burson offered to ghost write an op-ed column, let the blogger sign his name to it, and thehelp get it published in the Washington Post, Politico, The Hill, Roll Call,and The Huffington Post.
This led to a chain reaction in the media. USA Today ran a Money section front-page story, "PR Firm's Google Attack Fails, exposing the two formerjournalists, one former CNBC news anchor Jim Goldman and the other, former National Journal political columnist John Mercurio, as the surreptitious leakers.
Meanwhile, Google began fielding media calls about the little-known service and issued its own statement: "We have seen this e-mail reportedly sent by a representative of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller. We're not going to comment further. Our tocus is on delighting people with great products. Facebook quickly came out to separate itself from its public relations agency.Said a Facebook spokesperson, "No smear campaign was authorized or intended, adding that it hired Burson to "focus attention on this issue, using publicly available information that could be independently verified by any media organization or analyst."
A chastened Burson said Facebook asked to be anonymous but acknowledge that the misguided effort was "not at all standard operating procedure and is against our policies.The public relations industry was quick to denounce the clumsy "fake news" efforts of Burson and the two reporters turned- public relations professionals. Said the chair of the Public Relations Society of America(PRSA), "This reflects poorly upon the global public relations profession. Burson took the road of misleading and not disclosing who they were representing. In the essence of the public relations code of ethics 101, that's no-no. No-no.
Questions
1-What are the main ethical elements in this issue violated by the PR's
firm?
2. Should a public relations client always be identified?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

1 The main ethical element in this issue violated by the PRs firm are as follows a The ... View the full answer