Are you for real?

Ethics. They are the basis of everyday life. They influence our decisions. Before we participate in certain activities we wonder if they’re crossing any ethical boundaries. Well, most of us do anyway. Let’s take a look at the definition of ethics: a system of moral principles (www.dictionary.com). Okay, that’s easy enough to understand. Now for the definition of unethical: pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality (www.dictionary.com). A little more complicated, but still not impossible to understand. Yet, often it seems that more actions done are unethical, than ethical. At least they have more attention drawn to them.

Within one branch of Entertainment PR is to diffuse the unethical actions regarding our clients. They think for themselves and rarely take no for an answer. The clients of an Entertainment PR professional are constantly under scrutiny. This is one of the drawbacks of being in the public eye. Society watches them like a hawk, waiting for them to screw up.

Let’s take the ever so popular, Lindsay Lohan (as if she hasn’t been talked about enough!). Recently, she has been ALL over the news. Her PR team must be running on no sleep. It seems every other minute she is involved in another headline. I almost feel bad for her team, I bet that they had no idea what they were signing up for. Anyway, in her most recent court she was seen sporting this on her nails, Really Lindsay? . Wow. I cannot even imagine thinking about that when getting my nails done.

Of course the public was on her case wondering what she was thinking when she had that offensive phrase painted on to her nails. Did she have any ethics? Where were her moral principles? Did her team really advise her that that was a good choice in polish? Honestly, I bet they didn’t have a choice. Her Entertainment PR team had to take all the heat for this. Clearly, she only listens to herself. This is an example of a client acting unethical and the PR team having to pick up the slack and diffuse the situation.