User:ErrantX/Essays/PRSA Response

The topic of Public Relations editing on Wikipedia has, recently, become a contentious and public issue. The 2011 Bell Pottinger incident, where a UK PR firm were found to be massaging the Wikipedia articles of their clients, reached the mainstream media and has caused both PR professionals and Wikipedians to confront the issues of paid editing and advocacy.

IN January 2012 a Facebook group called CREWE was set up to provide a way for PR professionals to collaborate on these problems, leading to several surveys and collaborations with Wikipedians. In mid-April Marcia W. DiStaso published two articles. The first was, in the PRSA's Journal, summarised the results of a survey of PR professionals. The second, under the Institute for Public Relations, discussed the problems percieved by the PR industry.

The articles have been controversial, leading to headlines such as "Six out of 10 Wikipedia business entries contain factual errors". A headline that eventually became simply "Survey Shows 60 Percent of Entries Have Errors". The articles suffer from misunderstanding, in a large part, how Wikipedia (as a community) operates and risk simply alienating a community that may be open to dialogue. This essay is a response to the two articles; it has three aims. Firstly to discuss the significant problems that exist with both the survey and literature analysis (as well as problems with presentation and timing). Secondly, to provide some Wikiedian perspective on the issues at hand (i.e. de-mystifying the misconceptions). Thirdly, to provide ideas for fixing some of the perceived issues.

Background
The core of this problem ties back into the issue of "Conflict of Interest" (COI) editing on Wikipedia. This is one of the most major problems Wikipedia faces in general, along with the idea of Advocacy/Soapboxing. In short, many people (including some established editors) edit with the aim to promote a certain point of view.

Wikipedia aims to record a neutral viewpoint of topics - as editors and contributors we are expected to leave our own personal opinions at the door as much as possible. For some this is a lot harder than others and results in (often sub-concious) skewed material (for example; favouring negative material over positive).

Paid editing presents an interesting conundrum; because leaving your opinion at the door is very hard. It is not easy to discover, for example, the company you are representing has a sordid and well-recorded past and having to find ways to present that material fairly. Acting objectively becomes very hard under those circumstances.

Ethics
One of the things that PR professionals have raised most often in this ongoing dialogue is that many industry bodies have codes of ethics that mean they are able to maintain the objectivity required to edit company articles. Whilst this does go some way to addressing concerns it doesn't, in my opinion, fully alleviate the problem. To highlight why I will look at the PRSA's Code of Ethics document.

Within that document is the following guideline, listed under "Honesty" (emphasis mine):

"We adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent and in communicating with the public."

- PRSA Code of Ethics

What I have highlighted is key; the code of ethics is clear in identifying that a PR professionals role is to advance the interests of their client. That is not the same as "representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources" (taken from Wikipedia's neutrality guideline).

The code later points out that lying by omission (i.e. deleting negative details) would run contrary to industry ethics. And this is often pointed out in dialogue with PR professionals. However, simply deleting material is not the only issue.

Spin
In my dealings with PR professionals, even those acting ethically, there has been much pressure to give less weight to negative material. Or, more commonly, to increase the amount of positive material. This is entirely in sync with the industry ethical codes; it truthfully advances the clients interests. However, it may violate Wikipedia's neutrality policy by giving undue weight to the positive.

Clash of ethics
There is a further problem; an ethical clash between representing the clients interests and meeting Wikipedia's guidelines. To take an example I saw some time ago - a PR consultant had been asked to clean up their clients image following several years of lost legal cases. The consultant wanted to present new business enterprises the client had, utilising minimal sources. This in itself was not a huge problem - but the consultant pressed for this information to lead the article, in front of the negative. He went on to argue that this new material should be equal in length (despite essentially consisting of "X has recently started Y and Z companies to do A, B, C") to details of his client's legal problems, for reasons of "fairness".

And this is the crux of the problem from the perspective of Wikipedia; a PR professional is ethically obligated to present his or her client in the best light possible within the bounds of their self-imposed ethics. An aim that is incompatible with Wikipedia's essential purpose.