Damaged reputation in New Zealand

When I was reading Sriramesh book (The Global public relations handbook) my attention became attached to sentence, that just mentioned the reputational problems which PR practitioners had occured in New Zealand.

I thought to seek more information about this issue and here are some backround (source is again Sriramesh) and links to my discoveries:

Lobbying government on behalf of organizations has an important role for public relations consultancies in New Zealand. Political activism over a range of issues is continuing concern not only for the government but also for other organizations in New Zealand.

Public Relations practitioners in New Zealand have not always dealt with sensitive political issues in a way that has brought credit on the profession. These kinds of situations, like for example one public relations firm’s tactics used to discredit environmental activist opposing the logging of native forest or other PR consultancy’s tactics to prevent publicity about mutations occurring in genetically modified salmon, has seriously damaged the reputation of PR as a profession. These incidents have led PRINZ to rewrite its code of ethics and have made professional ethics an important topic for debate in national forums.

If you are interested, explore also Weaver’s & Motion’s article about Sabotage and subterfuge: public relations, democacy and genetic engineering in New Zealand. This article can be also found trough e-resources in Nelli from Sage journals online database.

Interesting, don't you think?

Written by Sanna