first interviewed Felicia Blow, APR, almost two years ago. She was one of my first 15 interviews for the blog and podcast. This year she is the 2022 National Chair or PRSA, so I thought it made sense to revisit the interview.
She discusses a number of important topics including:
• How to make the ethical choice when your bosses issue conflicting orders
• What to do when your employer lies to you
• New areas of PR ethics concerns
• The best ethics advice she ever received
Todd Van Hoosear, the Chief Engagement Officer for Business Breakthrough Network and a visiting instructor at Boston University, discusses a number of important ethics topics, including:
1) What do ethical PR professionals do when they are faced with conflicting loyalties?
2) The ethics challenges of a post-truth era
3) The need for action to change the perception of PR
Sam Villegas, APR, a Senior Consultant with Raftelis shares insight on:
1) What do you do when you are asked to stonewall on a public health issue?
2) When should you act as a whistle blower?
3) How do you effectively respond to disinformation and fear-based attacks?
Joining me on this week’s Ethical Voices episode is Kirk Hazlett, APR, Fellow PRSA, an adjunct professor of communication at the University of Tampa and a PR pro with 35 years of experience with the federal government and non-profits.
Kirk provides some great advice and anecdotes including:
• How an innocent question can cause a huge ethical challenge
• Why you need to question everything
• The best ethics advice he ever received
Joining me on this week’s episode is Roger Friedensen, a partner at Forge Communications, which is a research and communication strategy firm in Raleigh, North Carolina. Roger is a great PR professional and an even better guitar player.
In this interview, Roger discusses:
• When poor word choice can cause an ethics crisis
• How technology will create new ethics dilemmas
• The power of looking in the mirror
• Practical ethics advice from the Torah
Joining me on this week’s episode is Steve Cody, the founder and CEO of Peppercomm, a purpose-driven, strategic, integrative communications and marketing agency. Frankly, Steve is one of the most incisive and insightful PR pros I have ever met.
In this free-wheeling discussion, Steve addressed a number of key ethical issues including:
• Unexpected ethics pitfalls
• How to build an ethical team
• Where companies and agencies fail ethically
• Ethics in research
• Diversity failures
In this week’s Ethical Voices interview, Joe Cohen, APR, CCO of AXIS Capital and President of the PRSA Foundation, shares insights and examples of a few ethical issues he faced early in his career, before he joined AXIS Capital.
Specifically, Joe discusses:
The importance of disclosure
Responding ethically when an employee is harassed
The challenges of being “Healthy”
Fighting unconscious bias