People should not be silent when they see something that is wrong, says Brooke Deterline. CEO of Courageous Leadership. PRSA chapter leaders need to go to her workshops on how to “act with ethical courage.”

They are practically comatose after one indignity after another is dumped on them by the imperious national staff.

Brooke DeterlineBrooke Deterline

Deterline, a former journalist at SmartMoney, helps boards, executives and teams to “act with ethical courage to overcome complex social and business issues.

“Knowledge obligates you to do something—act heroically,” says Philip Zimbara,  Stamford University, psychology professor.

Latest affront to the chapter leaders and their members is the announcement on the front page of the February Tactics that “We’ve moved.”

It does not say, “Your h.q. has moved.” The “We” in the Tactics headline signifies what the staff believes—that PRSA belongs to them. That’s how they act. No details are yet available on the multi-million lease in offices far from midtown PR/ad, media firms, ad/marketing and PR groups. New York and other chapter leaders are afraid to ask for them.

Philip ZimbaraPhilip Zimbara

The Society once before made a stealth move—in 2004 to 33 Maiden lane. No one found out about that until the deal was closed and announced at the 2003 conference in New Orleans.

Muzzled Bystander Syndrome

Zimbara wears a shirt with the imprint, “HERO in Training.”

One of the findings of his “Heroic Imagination Project” is “the bystander effect--the more people who are on a scene, the less likely it is for anyone to help.”

In this case, 21,000 members are standing by in silence. That is the figure on the new PRSA website, down from 22,000.

In a shocker, the 21,000 includes 48 members of the staff when typically only 2-3 staffers were members. Included are all the top staffers such as CEO Joe Truncale, CFO Phil Bonaventura, controller Wai Cheung and VP-information technology Alex Ortiz who do not have traditional PR backgrounds.

Who Paid for PRSA Memberships for 48 Staffers?

Also on the site are 18 staffers with no titles and two administrative assistants. A question is who paid the $255 dues and $75 initiation fees of the 48 staffers? Companies and organizations typically pay "professional" dues of staffers. Only two of the 48 are APR--PR director Laurent Lawrence and Mindy Hughes. Whether any joined the New York chapter has yet to be determined.

The Society at one time required five years in PR positions for membership. Rules have been relaxed in recent years.

The public area of the new site is even less informative than the previous one. Only five staffers are listed whereas eight were previously shown. For many years, the Society listed the entire 40+ staffers by name, title, phone number and email.

That vanished in 2010. The list of Assembly delegates that could be accessed by the general membership was dropped after 2006.

Other info casualties were the audio recording and word-for-word transcript of the Assembly; the spring Assembly; the printed directory of members (last published in 2005); the single list of 110 chapter presidents; the enforced Ethics Code (abolished in 1999), and press conferences by board/officers (last one was in 1993).

The spring Assembly, at which delegates paid their own way, was replaced starting in 1998 by the "Leadership Rally" whose costs are picked up by national. It was expanded from the 110 chapter reps to 16 section chairs and 10 district chairs for a total of 136 people. Each gets $550 to help with expenses and at least five free meals including two dinners at Class A restaurants. Cost of the $550 for 136 is $74,800. Other costs including staff time probably drive the total beyond the $100K mark.

The meeting could easily double as an Assembly that would wipe out the undemocratic monopoly that APRs have had on governance since the 1970s. There are no signs of rebellion by the chapter presidents or the PR academics who have become dominant in PRSA affairs in recent years, replacing corporate and counselor members. Corporate execs moved to the Arthur W. Page Society and (PR) Seminar and counselors to the PR Council.

Professors Asked for PDF of Directory

A group of PR professors in 2008 complained about the loss of the 1,000-page directory of members, which they said was the single most valuable service of the Society. They said a PDF putting printing costs in the hands of members who want such a resource was possible but staff and leaders refused to discuss that. No vote was taken in the Assembly on switching to online-only membership lists, the professors noted.

PR profs said the directory was especially valuable to students who needed it for job-seeking. The educators created a 14-point paper listing reasons for again printing the directory or making it available as a PDF. They were ignored.

George Washington set the bar for truth-telling when as a six-year-old he tried out his new hatchet on various plants including taking a slice off the bark of a small cherry tree. That killed it.

His furious father demanded to know who killed his prize planting. Washington responded that he did. “I cannot tell a lie,” he said. Washington’s father took his son tenderly in his arms and said, “Truth is worth more to me than a thousand trees!”

President Lincoln noted that much of the public can be misled for long periods of time, saying “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

NYU Hired Ethics Specialist

New York University hired Jonathan Haidt, as a “professor of ethical leadership.” He joined in 2011 after 16 years at the University of Virginia where he was a professor in the psychology dept., doing research on moral psychology.

Haidt is spokesperson for a new group called EthicalSystems.org that claims it is the “first to pull together extensive research and resources on the subject of business ethics” with the aim of making it available to schools, government regulators and businesses.

PRSA chair Jane Dvorak, who has declared that “truth is the foundation of all effective communications,” should tell the truth about the new multi-million dollar h.q. lease at 120 Wall st.

Seven Society chapters urged the Society to shift most or all of its offices elsewhere in 1985. but these pleas were rejected. The lease at 845 Third Ave. was up in April 1987 and the Assembly demanded to have a voice in where new offices would land. Leading the charge was the Houston chapter, ninth biggest with 450 members. It sent the national board a demand that any office move be made by the Assembly. It withheld its dues in 1985.

The staff answered this by threatening to quit en masse if there were any move from New York.