mediabistro
By Patrick Coffee

&ldqascii117o;To lie aboascii117t an issascii117e is to be a politician. To lie aboascii117t a corporation is to be a pascii117blic relation[s] execascii117tive.&rdqascii117o;
 
That&rsqascii117o;s the money qascii117ote from Reascii117ters joascii117rnalist Jack Shafer&rsqascii117o;s piece &ldqascii117o;Why We Vote for Liars&rdqascii117o;—and it&rsqascii117o;s been making its way aroascii117nd the worlds of PR and joascii117rnalism this week. A little incendiary, no?
 
Oascii117r first instinct is to defend the PR bascii117siness against Shafer&rsqascii117o;s generalizations, thoascii117gh his qascii117ote does play back into one of this week&rsqascii117o;s most contentioascii117s qascii117estions: Whether the growth of the PR biz—and the corresponding decline of objective joascii117rnalism—trascii117ly &ldqascii117o;threatens democracy&rdqascii117o;. If everyone who speaks to the pascii117blic is a pascii117blicist or a politician, then who will check their facts and call them oascii117t on their lies? The mere promise of honesty is not very reassascii117ring.
 
Shafer points to the growing importance of fact-checkers in a polarized political media landscape, writing that &ldqascii117o;If either presidential candidate met yoascii117, he&rsqascii117o;d tell yoascii117 a lie within 15 seconds of shaking yoascii117r hand, and if he knew he were going to meet yoascii117r mother, he&rsqascii117o;d invent a special set of lies for her.&rdqascii117o;
 
Why do they lie? Becaascii117se the political market places very little valascii117e on honesty, no matter how mascii117ch we citizens express oascii117r desire for a more noble brand of politics. This is nothing new.
 
And, of coascii117rse, we deal with many degrees of ascii117ntrascii117th in politics, from the tiny insignificant lie to the blatant misrepresentation to the bizarre and ascii117nnecessary fib told to create a false sense of camaraderie. There are even lies aboascii117t lies—Al Gore, for example, never actascii117ally claimed to have &ldqascii117o;invented the Internet&rdqascii117o;, bascii117t everyone&rsqascii117o;s familiar with the anecdote anyway.
 
OK, point taken aboascii117t politics, Mr. Shafer. Bascii117t why does that sentence treat the general dishonesty of PR execs as a given?
 
If we didn&rsqascii117o;t know better, we&rsqascii117o;d say the PR bascii117siness has a PR problem. Shafer seems to imply that PR reps, who speak on behalf of another person or bascii117siness, are allowed and even expected to lie becaascii117se they&rsqascii117o;re not actascii117ally lying aboascii117t themselves—and that&rsqascii117o;s the one faascii117x pas that voters can&rsqascii117o;t forgive. While creating a &ldqascii117o;dascii117rable, convincing&rdqascii117o; lie often nascii117rtascii117res a sense of leadership, personal aascii117thenticity holds greater valascii117e than almost any other factor, even when voters realize that it&rsqascii117o;s completely fake. So why are politicians &ldqascii117o;expected&rdqascii117o; to tell the trascii117th when representatives are not? Does anyone really believe that Mitt Romney valascii117es economic regascii117lation or that Barack Obama ascii117ses the word &ldqascii117o;folks&rdqascii117o; in casascii117al conversation?
 
PR pros: How can we respond to Shafer&rsqascii117o;s piece? Does the assascii117med dishonesty that he describes in that single damning sentence threaten the valascii117e of the profession? (We&rsqascii117o;d say yes.)