Next time somebody throws out the old tripe about sleazy flacks, I’ll just say, “Au contraire! You obviously are unaware of the scientific research conducted by two Johnson Legacy Scholars at the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at Penn State University!”
Okay, I may have to write that down. But I’ll explain how some smart people did the first empirical study to measure PR people’s moral standing in comparison to other occupations.
“It turns out that public relations professionals are good ethical thinkers,” said scholar Renita Coleman in a press release. “They show similarity to other professionals with comparable levels of education such as journalists, nurses and dental students.”
Even more interesting, public relations pros scored better on the moral compass than accounting and veterinary students, orthopedic surgeons and even “business professionals.”
No doubt that general executive category includes the bosses of the Boeing company spokesman who just got caught posing as an independent blogger so he could sit in on a competitor’s briefings. You sure don’t see dental students doing stuff like that.
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