Spinning - a threat to the profession of PR

People working in PR often have to face a rather negative reputation being associated with the act of spin. The PR practitioners that mostly have to cope with this image are probably those in position of the communications director of a political person. It is their duty and responsibility to change, kill, cover up or weaken negative stories about the person they are working for and ensure that these people are shed in positive light in front of the public.

Although ‘spinning’ is viewed as a highly unethical act “it is the most common form of PR as electoral politics and is political news management between political parties, government and the electorate.” (Moloney, 2000, p. 105). Moloney continues referring to Freidenberg (1997), pointing out that within the last few years, political consultants have achieved a status other than their actual position implies – being hyped by the media as celebrities themselves (Moloney, 2000, p. 106). One of these very “well-known celebrities” is Alistair Campbell who used to be Director of Communications and Strategy for former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Campbell is officially known and called “Spin doctor” among the public, especially after the scandal of the “September Dossier” in 2002 and the “Iraq Dossier” in 2003. These two documents were intended to gain great support by the public containing falsified and misleading information that “justified” the invasion of Iraq.

Spin used to be and will continue to be ethically wrong. Spin will never be approved of but will always be used – especially in politics. It is questionable if those people using spin will ever set themselves or stick to certain simple ethical boundaries instead of doing whatever they (in their eyes) have to do to achieve a certain goal – like Alistair Campbell who made the whole public think that going to war is the right thing to do.

The issue of spinning will always be a “hot topic” and a worry to those PR practitioners that operate in other sectors. They might do everything else but spinning and if there is not a drastic change, the image of a “spin doctor” will probably always be glued to their job, damaging the overall reputation of the profession Public Relations.