VIEWPOINTS : Speakes’ Transgressions Tarnish PR Professionals

The public relations profession has been given another black eye, this one courtesy of Larry Speakes, the former spokesman for President Reagan.

In his new kiss-and-tell book, “Speaking Out,” Speakes reveals that he collaborated with an aide to concoct quotes he later told reporters were Reagan’s own words. Speakes also writes that he attributed to the President remarks actually made by Secretary of State George Shultz.

The flap triggered by these disclosures prompted Speakes’ resignation from his $250,000-a-year job as spokesman for Merrill Lynch & Co. More important, the Speakes affair has raised pointed questions about the ethical standards and practices of some in the public relations industry.

That Larry Speakes would write a book like “Speaking Out” (actually, it was done by magazine writer Robert Pack) is disappointing but not very surprising. After all, there is a big demand for kiss-and-tell books and the author whose kissed a big name can expect to reap big money.

But what Speakes’ book reveals is outrageous. Besides betraying the trust of his former boss, Speakes has displayed shoddy ethical and professional standards in taking it upon himself to determine what the President of the United States should say in a given moment. Granted, the comments he attributed to the President were not earth-shaking, but how could he have known that at the time?

As an industry that is widely misunderstood and has suffered more than its fair share of bad press (no small feat for a business that should promote good press), public relations did not need Speakes’ irresponsible actions. Nor has the industry needed the embarrassment brought by those public relations people who have knowingly issued inaccurate or misleading information on behalf of national leaders, corporate chieftains and celebrities.

Even the most restrained critics have accused the industry of trying to whitewash sensitive matters. This is not what good public relations is all about.

True, the industry exists to place its clients in the best possible light by effectively communicating their ideas and points of view, but it never needs to resort to trickery or lying. That’s for hacks, not professionals.

What constitutes proper and effective public relations? Sometimes it’s a tough call. If a client gets involved in a messy lawsuit, do you announce it right away or try to hold off until the matter is settled? We recently counseled a client to do the latter, figuring there was no reason to unnecessarily publicize an unresolved legal problem.

On the other hand, we told a client who drafted a puff-filled speech to shareholders to let the facts speaks for themselves. Happily, in this case they didn’t require any embellishment.

Tricky ethical issues notwithstanding, there are some clear-cut rules of conduct. To begin with, you have to get the client’s approval for anything put out under his or her name. Speakes violated that rule in his eagerness to have the President (his client) sound well-informed on two separate issues.

Speakes’ goal was in itself admirable. After all, helping a client come across well is part of what the trade is all about. (“You know, Mr. President, what Shultz said was pretty good. How about if you say that?”)

A client frequently knows what to say, but not how to say it well. Professional public relations people can help by crafting expressive, on-target statements, speeches and reports. (Beware of public relations people who put out stilted, opaque or empty prose.) But the safeguard in this method is the approval process. To make sure the process works the way it should, clients must be familiar with what the public relations people are writing and feel comfortable with each document’s tone and context.

When prior approval is impossible--such as when a public relations specialist responds to questions at a news conference--the spokesman does the job best by adhering closely to the facts and the client’s philosophy without putting words in someone else’s mouth.

Perhaps Speakes thought he knew the President well enough to make statements in his stead. As inconceivable as it seems, perhaps the President even felt comfortable with such an arrangement. It’s hard to buy the White House’s explanation that Reagan didn’t know about the fabricated quotes until news about “Speaking Out” brought them to light. (If Reagan wasn’t aware of the concocted quotes, it doesn’t say much for the skills of “the Great Communicator” in managing public relations.)

In any case, the credibility of both Speakes--who considered himself “the second most visible person in the country”--and the President has been damaged and the public was ill-served. Speakes may soon be looking for a job, but I doubt if he’ll find one in public relations unless, of course, he’s interested in harking back to the old days of hucksterism and flackery that have so tainted a worthy and responsible profession.

But I haven’t the time to worry about where Larry Speakes might end up. In fact, I didn’t have the time to write this guest commentary. I did, however, carefully go over each point with one of my staff writers and approved both its tone and content. Perhaps Reagan and Speakes should have done the same.