Fraser
P. Seitel has been a communications
consultant, author and teacher for 30 years. He
may be reached directly at yusake
@aol.com.
He
is the author of the Prentice- Hall text The Practice of Public Relations,
now in its eleventh edition, and co-author of Idea Wise.
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Dec. 29, 2010 |
WHY LAWYERS MAKE LOUSY PR PROFESSIONALS |
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By Fraser P. Seitel
Every individual in the U.S. is guaranteed, by virtue of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the right to legal counsel.
There is no such similar guaranteed right to PR counsel.
A PR pro, while advocating for his client, must seek out and represent the “truth,” as he or she believes it to be.
Stated another way, a PR professional must never lie in behalf of a client. Nor should a PR person represent a client that he or she believes to be unethical, immoral or worse.
An attorney, by contrast, has no such restrictions. A lawyer’s job is to represent his client’s position under the rules of the adversary system and do all he can to achieve a result advantageous for that client. A lawyer, therefore, is principally concerned that his client receive the best possible representation, regardless of whether he is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, guilty or not.
As Alan Dershowitz famously answered when asked if he thought his client, O.J. Simpson, murdered his wife and her friend, “The code of Professional Responsibility precludes a lawyer from stating his opinions about the guilt or innocence of a client.”
In other words, Dershowitz didn’t ask because he didn’t care and besides, “it wasn’t his job” to find out.
And that, in essence, is the inherent conflict between public relations professionals and lawyers.
PR people must “care” whether the client did it and conduct their own due diligence to determine if their client or potential client merits their trust. All you have in PR is your “credibility,” and if you lie or associate with the wrong people, you lose that most precious asset.
Stated another way, PR “ethics” are more ethical than legal ethics.
This all comes to mind in observing the current controversy involving Bill Clinton’s former White House special legal counsel-turned public relations crisis manager Lanny Davis, as he tries to defend himself and his client, the embattled former president of the Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, who is desperately trying to hold onto power despite being defeated in the country’s recent election.
While certain facts in the Gbagbo case are unclear, others are indisputable:
- In 2000, Gbagbo came to power in Cote d’Ivoire – a unique jewel in the West African landscape, ruled peacefully for 33 years by benevolent and beloved despot Felix Houphouët-Boigny -- after his opponent, who declared victory, was forced to flee the country.
- Gbagbo’s presidential term was supposed to expire in 2005 but continued to 2010 because of recurring civil strife in the country, including one incident in which nine French peacekeepers were killed by government air strikes.
- Two months ago, as a result of the country’s first presidential election in a decade, the Ivory Coast Election Commission declared Alassane Ouattara the new president, despite claims of fraud by Gbagbo.
- International election observers, the U.S., the United Nations, and the West African regional bloc, all confirmed the results of the election.
- Gbagbo, however, refused to yield, declared himself president, and ordered his armed supporters to surround the headquarters of the opposition as he retook the presidency.
Last week, the U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council reported that as a result of Gbagbo’s refusal to cede power, 200 have died, dozens more have been "tortured or mistreated, and others have been snatched from their homes in the middle of the night.”
What is also indisputable is that Gbagbo hired Lanny Davis as his $100,000-a-month U.S PR mouthpiece.
And that’s the point.
As a lawyer, Davis feels no ethical compunction defending an individual, accused by his adversaries of launching “death squads” to terrorize his countrymen and renounced by the international community (including the wife of his former boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) for subverting a legitimate election and potentially plunging the once-stable nation back into civil war.
“I’ve been retained to resolve this crisis peacefully, through dialogue and mediation,” insists Davis. “The Supreme Court of the Ivory Coast declared Mr. Gbagbo the winner,” he argues.
Of course, Davis fails to acknowledge that Mr. Gbagbo played a strong role in appointing the members of the Ivory Coast Supreme Court.
And as to a U.N. report that linked Gbagbo to atrocities in the Ivory Coast, Mr. Davis is dismissive, “I’ve read the report. But I’d like to see the substantiation and to know who wrote it. Of course, if it’s true, I couldn’t defend human rights abuses.”
Of course.
There’s no question that Lanny Davis is a glib and argumentative interviewee, who can hold his own in any debate.
He has made similar spirited arguments in behalf of the corrupt president of Equatorial Guinea, the Lernout & Hauspie software company found guilty of accounting fraud, HealthSouth’s slimy CEO Richard Schrushy sent to jail for bribery, and, of course, the U.S. President who insisted he “did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”
No one argues with Mr. Davis’ competence as a lawyer. It’s his ethics as a PR professional that are in question. Where others see international terrorists and thugs, he sees maligned politicians begging for their voices to be heard. Where others see corporate criminals who steal from their constituents, he sees misunderstood capitalists whose benign actions have been misinterpreted.
All in the name of “dialogue and negotiation” -- not to mention, significant retainers.
With new friends like this, PR can count on a lot more enemies. |
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Responses: |
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Bill Huey, Strategic Communications, Atlanta (12/29):
PR “ethics” are more ethical than legal ethics? What an interesting notion, Fraser. And possibly true, assuming the PR practitioner has any ethics in the fist place. There’s nothing that says they have to, except some vague reputational threat few take seriously. Lawyers, on the other hand, are sworn officers of the court, and they can lose their licenses for unethical behavior. No such sanctions in PR, which leaves room for a lot of the things that we see going on in PR and nobody bats an eyelash.
Moreover, in representing the Ivorian wannabe president for life, Lanny Davis is acting neither as a PR person nor a lawyer. He’s a lobbyist and fixer, a species that populates Washington in large numbers because they have an abundant food supply and no natural predators. So he isn’t bound by any ethics except his own, which appear to have taken a winter vacation.
We don’t know exactly why fixers do what they do, or even what they do (e.g., Wag the Dog: “Conrad, what do you actually DO for the president?”). Possibly Davis is on a special mission from President Obama, who the New York Times says is prone to keep himself at a comfortable distance from African nations and their myriad problems, much to their chagrin.
Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (12/30):
Excuse us naive folks, Fraser, but a little review of the "truth" put out by Gadaffi's guys and those who blew $14 million of Saudi fortune to escape a trillion dollar law suit by 9/11 victims' survivors, plus a few other salient examples of "truth" from PR outfits hardly makes the assumptions you have drawn so legit.
Wes Pedersen (12/30):
In earlier days, before the reformation of the public relations industry into a spotlessly clean medium of the arts and sciences, the question of truth vs fabrication came up at a PR agency morning conference. Without hesitation, the boss said, "It's okay to lie." Thank goodness, those days are gone forever.
Mike Paul, the Reputation Doctor, MGP & Associates PR (1/03):
Fraser - so true! I have been preaching this to clients and on TV for years. Thanks for bringing it home with clear, current examples.
[email protected] (1/03):
Of course there's a major difference between lawyers and PR people. PR people through the ages are duty-bound to be advocates for their client's positions. Many lawyers, through the ages, have been advocates and defenders of our freedoms and are not afraid to defend unpopular causes or upset media contacts. |
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