Commentary Article on Fake News: PR's Greatest Threat

The credibility of Public Relations has been a topic that is controversial to many. The main question on everyone’s lips is: Will fake news end the future of Public Relations? Personally, I do think that media forms such as newspapers and live broadcasting is dying out therefore leaving PR to pick up the pieces.

Public Relations as a profession is trusted to build strategic relationships between organizations in an ethical manner. By doing so they rely on the media. When the media is no longer credible, how can PR be considered credible. Campaigns like “PaidTwitter” and “Bell Pottinger” have compromised PR’s credibility in the sense of fake news. According to guest speaker Greg Gordon, algorithms are determining news agendas these days and it is based on the taste of the audience. They give the audience what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear regardless of if it is true or not.

Those in power have been using fake news for decades to promote themselves via propaganda. Those in power will do anything to stay in power. Big companies like Bell Pottinger would neglect their company morals for capital. A big instigator for fake news is social media. We trust everything we read online therefore we do not do research and spread false information. The internet does not sleep and this information/fake news spreads faster than a wildfire.

In my opinion we should do thorough research on matters before clicking the share button. News outlets should find new ways to connect to an audience, there needs to be certain measures put in to ensure the credibility of media again. Printed media is a dying breed therefore there should be new methods incorporated for real news to be shared.it is up to media to redeem itself and with that PR will be saved as well. Like Diana Neille argued, PR and News Media need to remain separate but that does not mean that they do not affect one another. There must be a clear distinction between the two but together they should complement each other.

In the past Public Relations was compromised but it is not too late. We as PR professionals should take the correct ethical measures to make sure that PR goes back to the way it was, take it to even higher lengths.

Pictures: New world record or fake story, what is it now_ South Africa under the spell of the ultra-rare dentine (https://pinterest.com)