Randal Marlin
Page 43
.
17 Commission on Public Relations Education.
18 Commission on Public Relations Education.
19 Public Relations Society of America, Member Code of Ethics;
codeenglish/>.
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20 Canadian Public Relations Society, Code of Professional Standards, clauses 1–3;
aboutus/code_ethic.aspx>.
21 Peter O’Malley, “In Praise of Secrecy: The Ethical Foundations of Public Relations,”
com/cprs.htm>. Originally published in Vox, The Newsletter of the Ottawa Chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society. I would like to thank Mr. O’Malley for permission to quote from this text (e-mail, May 30, 2013).
22 Canadian Public Relations Society, Code of Professional Ethics. A copy was kindly provided to me by CPRS.
See the CPRS website:
23 “Corporate Cointelpro,” Harper’s Magazine (July 1989): 24.
24 Norman Rubin, Energy Probe Newsletter (1990).
25 D.L. Lewis, “The Outstanding PR Professionals,” Public Relations Journal (October 1970): 78.
26 Marvin Olasky, Corporate PR (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Eerlbaum Associates, 1987) and “Ivy Lee: Minimizing Competition through PR,” PR Quarterly (Fall 1987): 9–15.
27 The idea that truth is easier to prove than falsehood is found in Aristotle. John Thorp has an interesting discussion about this in “Aristotle’s Rehabilitation of Rhetoric,” The Canadian Journal of Rhetorical Studies (September 1993): 13–30, especially 16ff.
28 PRSA Code of Professional Standards for the Practice of Public Relations: History of Enforcement (New York: Public Relations Society of America, 1987).
29 See R.M. Miller, Harry Emerson Fosdick: Preacher, Pastor, Prophet (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985) especially 154 and 106; see also Olasky, Corporate PR 48; Olasky, “Ivy Lee” 11; and H.R. Ryan, Harry Emerson Fosdick: A Persuasive Preacher (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989) 79, for more about payments for disseminating Fosdick’s message.
30 Elizabeth Payne, “Proposed Tobacco Bill Going Up in Smoke,” Ottawa Citizen, September 22, 1993: A3; and Imasco Ltd . , Annual Report 1992, 4.
31 The Independent, October 31, 1996.
32 Ivy Lee, “Problems of Propaganda,” Ivy Lee Papers, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University (February 23, 1930): Box 3, Folder 2, 2.
33 Lee, “Editing Public Opinion,” Ivy Lee Papers (n.d.): Box 2, Folder 1.
34 Lee, “Problems of Propaganda” 5.
35 Lee, “Constructive Publicity,” Ivy Lee Papers (1922–23): Box 2, Folder 3, 1. See also, Ray Eldon Hiebert, Courtier to the Crowd: The Story of Ivy Lee and the Development of Public Relations (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1966) 170; and Lee, “Editing Public Opinion” 8–9.
36 Lee, “Editing Public Opinion” ch. III, 4.
37 Lee, “Editing Public Opinion” ch. I, 8. See also, Ivy Lee, “The Menace of Propaganda,” typescript of an article produced from an interview with Samuel Crowther for Collier’s Weekly. Approved by Lee on October 13, 1925. Ivy Lee Papers (1925): Box 3, Folder 1, 21–22.
38 Lee, “Editing Public Opinion” ch. IV, 5.
39 Lee, “Problems of Propaganda” 1–2, 3–4.
40 Lee, “Constructive Publicity” 1.
41 This and the preceding sections incorporate material previously published in my “Public Relations Ethics: Ivy Lee, Hill and Knowlton, and the Gulf War” International Journal of Moral and Social Studies 8, no. 3
(Autumn 1993) 237–56.
42 Wall Street Journal, January 12, 1992.
43 See on this “Kuwait’s ‘Stolen’ Incubators: The Widespread Repercussions of a Murky Incident,” Middle East Watch 4, no. 1 (February 6, 1992) 1–23. See also John MacArthur, Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992); Randal Marlin, “A Matter of Credibility,” Content (May/
June 1991); and Linden MacIntyre, “To Sell a War,” the fifth estate, CBC Television (January 7, 1992). As a result of seeing my Content article, fifth estate researchers contacted me early in December 1991 to see what ideas I might have to offer. I suggested that they find out the identity of “Nayirah,” the Kuwaiti girl who was such an effective witness for the incubator babies story. It seemed to me that, with her excellent English, she was no ordinary Kuwaiti girl but had made a perfect “credible witness” for the US audience and that her connections would probably be revealing. Such turned out to be the case, as “To Sell a War” demonstrated so well.
44 MacArthur 50.
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45 Nayirah’s age generally has been given as 15 and appears that way in every press account I have seen. Hill and Knowlton, in answer to a written query from me, gave the age as 14 at the time of her testimony (letter from Thomas Ross, Senior Vice-President, June 10, 1993), and I suppose they would have access to knowledgeable sources. However, her age does have a small role to play: her credibility was important at the time of her testimony, and being 15 carries greater weight than 14. On the other hand, in 1993 her supposedly impressionistic rendering of events and unreliable memory at the time of her testimony was the issue, and this would fit slightly better with a 14-year-old girl.
46 See McIntyre, “To Sell a War.”
47 MacArthur 54.
48 See Middle East Watch 5f
“unsuccessfully attempted” to locate Dr. Abdul Rahman Sumaid ( sic—spellings of the name differ), whom they describe as “a Red Crescent doctor who is reported to have stated that he participated in the burial of 72 babies at Al-Rigga Cemetery.” Kroll Associates Inc., “Investigation into allegations regarding deaths of neonatal patients at Al-Adan Hospital, Al-Jahra Hospital, and Al-Sabah Maternity Hospital during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, and the status of handicapped care at the social welfare institutes” (April 1992).
49 Amnesty International News Release, Canadian Section (English speaking), (Ottawa), April 18, 1991: 37.
50 MacArthur 70.
51 Tom Eidson, speech (no title) on Hill and Knowlton’s work on behalf of Citizens for a Free Kuwait, Church of the Incarnation, “Ethics in Media” luncheon, April 20, 1993. I would like to thank Hill and Knowlton for sending me this document.
52 US Secretary of the Army, Report on Iraqi War Crimes (Desert Shield/Desert Storm), unclassified version, January 8, 1992; submitted to UN Security Council, March 19, 1993, as document s/25441. Relevant pages are 14, 41, and 51.
53 Amnesty International 9–10.
54 Kroll Associates 6 (emphasis in the original).
55 Personal correspondence, Alice McGillion, July 8, 1993 and August 23, 1993.
56 Middle East Watch 5.
57 Kroll Associates 3.
58 Middle East Watch 2.
59 I.F. Stone, I.F. Stone’s Weekly, dir. Jerry Bruck, Boston, 1973.
60 Tim Weiner, “Military accused of lies over arms,” New York Times, June 28, 1993.
61
as-audit-pegs-cost
s-at-45-billion/article6260601>.
62 These estimates are taken from a study by an international team of researchers led by Dr. Alberto Ascherio of the Harvard School of Public Health. Originally published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it is quoted here from “Gulf War Caused Huge Jump in Infant Mortality, Study Finds,” Ottawa Citizen, September 24, 1992.
63 There are others who deserve recognition, such as Alexander Cockburn, The Nation, February 4, April 8, and May 13, 1991. See also his “Human Rights and Wrongs,” London Review of Books, May 9, 1991: 12. Cockburn’s early scepticism about the number of incubators in prewar Kuwait was justified in the light of the Kroll Report, which placed the number as between 235 and 260 (see Kroll Report 15).
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CHAPTER 6
Freedom of Expression:
CHAPTER 6:
Some Classical Arguments
FREEDOM OF
EXPRESSION:
SOME CLASSICAL
ARGUMENTS
InTRoDUCTIon
Our discussion so far has focused on the ethics of communication. Unethical behaviour,
when recognized as such, elicits disapproval from others in society. This is not always
verbally expressed, since few people wish to appear self-righteous, but disapproval can
be detected easily in the usual non-verbal forms of communication, such as facial expres-
sions. Discussion about ethics can encourage or discourage any questionable activity,
since ethics is not merely “academic” but concerns how we live our lives. Given social
disapproval, controls follow a consensus that a certain activity is morally undesirable.
Whistling at women, socially tolerated in North America in the 1950s, is now unaccept-
able because of a change in attitude that now sees it as harassment. Sometimes a change
in attitude is sufficient by itself to restrain unethical and anti-social behaviour, sometimes legal or quasi-legal controls are needed, and sometimes the important attitude change
only comes about after the adoption of legal or quasi-legal controls.
There is an important two-way influence between law and public opinion. Law
that flies in the face of deeply entrenched public opinion will be unenforceable or
enforceable at unacceptable cost. But law that touches an area where age-old prejudices
show signs of being discarded can speed up the process dramatically. Sexual harassment
is a case in point. The introduction of human rights legislation and the commissions to
enforce it have given legal teeth to attitudes in support of women and minority groups.
They have the right to work unmolested, verbally or otherwise, in jobs hitherto closed
to them. While not universally successful, the overall profound change in access has
been accelerated by legislative means, and along with this change has come a reinforce-
ment, for the most part, of the attitudes that led to adoption of the legislation.1 Over
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a century ago, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, architect of the criminal code that became the foundation for Canadian criminal law, noted how attitudes toward duelling were
greatly altered when inflicting death on another in a duel was ruled to be murder.2
The need for legal controls on incitement has long been recognized. “Spreading
false news” was an offence under Edward I of England and remains so in the Criminal
Code of Canada, although without force and effect since it was judged unconstitu-
tional by the Supreme Court in 1992. The Criminal Code provisions against hate pro-
paganda have survived the constitutional scrutiny of the courts, and the continued
existence of the civil law of defamation in most jurisdictions provides a disincentive
to malicious communications. In various times and to various degrees, a wide variety
of communications has been subject to legal controls. At one time, it was a crime
of sedition in Britain to “excite disaffection against the person of her Majesty, her
heirs or successors, or the government and constitution of the United Kingdom, as
by law established, or either House of Parliament, or the administration of justice....”3
This involved something as innocent, by today’s standards, as selling a copy of Tom
Paine’s Rights of Man. Now, obscenity and pornography, libel, violation of copyright, fraudulent misrepresentation, incitement to lawbreaking, treason, contempt of court,
divulging of state secrets, breach of trust, broadcasting without a licence, etc.—all
are subject to criminal or civil legal sanctions, and the list is by no means complete.
Virtually every attempt to restrict freedom of expression has a plausible-sounding
reason, stated in some general terms, for imposing the restriction. However, it is hard
to think of any form of restriction of free expression that has not at some time been
abused. Even that great defender of liberty, Voltaire, to whom Tallentyre attributed
the attitude, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to
say it,”4 was quite merciless in his prosecution of the publisher Grasset, who printed
uncomplimentary things about him.
Our concern here is with what might be called the jurisprudence of propaganda
controls. The scope includes hate propaganda; incitement to war; and controls over
the media, advertising, and public relations. Although we include pornography inso-
far as that can be construed as hate propaganda, discussion of controls over erotica,
as such, are beyond the scope of this book. The inclusion of the words “as such” is
necessary, because it is clear that dissemination of erotic and scatological materials is
often bound up with attempts at persuasion. Our focus is on the “ought” question:
are some forms of controls justified in the areas concerned and, if so, what kind?
Pertinent to these questions is the underlying and persistent value of free expression.
It is important, therefore, to review the classical arguments in favour of such freedom
by thinkers such as Milton, Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Mill, Meiklejohn, and Chafee,
to name only a few. These defenders of free speech (treating this here as meaning free
expression) had outspoken critics; in the case of the first five, the criticism was some-
times on the basis of internal inconsistencies, sometimes on the basis of discrepancy
between word and action. As we review the arguments of John Milton and John
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Stuart Mill, we will find free-speech defenders invoking the following values: truth, self-fulfilment and self-development, autonomy, democracy, balance between stability and change in society, social interaction and community, avoidance of the slippery
slope to tyranny, and, more recently, self-legitimation or self-respect.
JoHn MILTon
John Milton (1608–74) argues passionately against the power of the state to suppress
a publication through the requirement of a licence, which it can withhold or revoke.
This power, exercised largely through the Court of Star Chamber until 1641, was re-
enacted by Parliament in 1643 in an Act “to regulate printing: that no book, pamphlet,
or paper shall be henceforth printed,
unless the same be first approved and licensed by
such, or at least one of such as shall be thereto appointed.” Having attracted threats of
censorship as a result of his publishing without a licence what some preachers called
a “wicked” pamphlet on divorce, Milton wrote his famous Areopagitica in opposition
to the whole process of government licensing. Echoes of his arguments can be heard
in virtually any contemporary debate on free speech versus censorship.
According to his book, Milton opposed censorship generally, but he is especially
critical of licensing because it involved what later came to be termed, in the United
States, “prior restraint.” The special harm attaching to prior restraint is that the govern-
ment can keep materials from reaching the public, so there can be no accountability,
no judgment by the people that the power to suppress was wrongly exercised. Some of
Milton’s phrases apply to both pre-publication and post-publication censorship: “as
good almost kill a man as kill a good book ... he who destroys a good book, kills reason
itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.”5 Perhaps his main argument is the
argument from truth, that by prohibiting publication the learning process is stifled. If
a book is in error, free discussion will reveal the errors. As Milton writes so eloquently:
And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth
be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her
strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a
free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing. (JM 50)
Licensing, he says, in a frequently adopted mercantile metaphor, “hinders and retards
the importation of our richest merchandise, truth” (JM 41).
Milton brings other powerful arguments to bear:
1. Our abilities will be blunted if we are constantly protected from error. We should
actively engage in the process of filtering truth from error and should not rely on
someone else to do it for us.
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