Our Ethical Responsibility to Anticipate Context and Identify Issues

So, how do these takeaways translate into our day-to-day ethical responsibilities? By understanding the frames that are used to convey your organization’s news, you are able to help ensure that your organization ethically addresses public expectations and concerns. Accordingly, applying the principles of media framing analysis helps in two specific ways: anticipating the types of coverage we might receive, and identifying opportunities to address inappropriate coverage.

Anticipating Context: First, if we embrace the fact that today’s stories indeed become tomorrow’s context, we must learn to anticipate how that could (or should) influence our communication needs. A reporter who provides historical context is, after all, just doing her job. We should expect (and respect) their responsibility to do so. In the Josh Brown NFL example, then, you would be able to counsel management ahead of time that when the news breaks reporters most likely will evaluate if and how this event relates to past issues. You would anticipate that any past action, positive or negative, will be scrutinized and provided for public consumption. Accordingly, you would counsel management on if and how you would reference past issues while making a statement.

Of course, it might be difficult to bring ethical concerns to management’s attention. It might be an even bigger challenge convincing them to take an action or make a statement that might not put the organization in the best light. But in your role as the organization’s ethical conscience, and thinking about reputation over the long term, you must counsel the organization regarding the most-appropriate path. In the NFL case, management might not want to address the Ray Rice case, because it would bring additional negative attention to the organization. In your role anticipating the media coverage, however, you know that the media will bring it up anyway. Perhaps the league should therefore consider making a statement along the lines of, “We acknowledge that this is the not the first case of domestic abuse we’ve had to deal with as a League. And we admit we need to do better. We will. Here’s our plan.”

The ultimate goal is to let the public know that your organization is aware of an issue, acknowledges the context surrounding that issue, and is taking the needed steps to address that issue. Otherwise, as seen in the media coverage in this NFL case, there is a risk that the public might see you as out of touch and not fundamentally concerned with the things that matter to them—which influences the broader public perception of an organization’s values. After all, as one of the key Page Principles reminds us, we must “Conduct public relations as if the whole company depends upon it…. all business in a democratic society begins with public permission and exists by public approval” (Block, 2016). Moreover, in Arthur Page’s own words, “The fundamental way of getting [public approval] is to deserve it”