Popular TV programmes such as The Fixer, where Kerry Washington’s portrayal of mastermind spin doctor Olivia Pope puts a glamorous spin on the comings and goings of the relentlessly portrayed Oval Office, suggests that the communication industry is full of deceit, manipulation and scandal.
Although fictional, with good intentions always justifying devious behaviour in the series, there’s no doubt this is happening in the real-life corporate world right here, right now, in SA and the rest of the globe.
Lying for and on behalf of an organisation is acknowledged as rife, often with disastrous effects on an organisation’s reputation. A recent article in PRWeek highlighted the fact that many PR professionals and CEOs lie and hide information to try to look better in stakeholders’ eyes, quoting the alarming findings of Prof Ronél Rensburg, Head of the Communication Division at the University of Pretoria, a veteran and passionate ambassador for an ethical communication industry.
She interviewed 20 top PR/communication executives employed in South African companies to determine the full extent of corporate lying and deceit. Her research study, Corporate Lying: An Occupational Hazard?, revealed that a staggering 85% of respondents admitted to lying for or on behalf of an organisation, with most of them saying they’d do it again. “One respondent said: ‘We’re actually professional liars’; another admitted: ‘I’m paid to lie’, while a third maintained: ‘You always have to lie to the media’,” says Rensburg. “There were comments about being ‘professional manipulators’ and that ‘people who are told what they want to hear usually don’t regard it as a lie’.
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