Jack Abramoff and the Reputation of Lobbying and PR
Recently, on msnbc.com there have been a series of stories on Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who laundered money between his clients and certain non-profit groups. This story upsets me because most of the non-profits involved knew the situation they were putting themselves in, and I hate the way that looks on the entire field of non-profits, and the public relations professionals who are trying to work for them. Because lobbying is a specialized field within public relations, how does it then affect the reputation of public relations as a whole? Our text says that “Despite occasional abuse and public rebuke, lobbying remains a legal and accepted way for…groups to influence governmental decision making” (Cutlip, p. 17-18). Unfortunately, these incidents are becoming more and more common. With stories like this happening every day – how long can we expect this to be the case? Besides the obvious lack of ethics here, what does this do for the reputation of public relations lobbyists and non-profit professionals?
posted by Anonymous @ 10/16/2006 04:29:00 PM
1 Comments:
Cutlip states about this issue that “lobbying legislation was inadequate to control all of the instances of potential corruption” (pg. 156). So is the answer to put more regulations on lobbyists that represent nonprofits and other organizations in Congress? Will this make the instance of laundering occur less frequently? I’m not sure, because it seems like people with unethical intentions are going to find a way around the system no matter what the law says. But what may happen with more regulation is that more people would be caught and brought to justice.
These instances of laundering concern me too because it does reflect badly on those who work in nonprofits to help people, and not to participate in illegal activities. It hurts the reputation of public relations as well, because it reinforces the stereotype that many have that public relations practitioners are dishonest. Ultimately, this leads back to the question of whether or not practitioners should be required to be licensed through PRSA or similar organization. What do you think?
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