Hundreds of thousands of business communicators engage globally
in activities that in turn affect the lives of millions of people. There are
certain social responsibilities that come with this package of enormous power,
and because of that purpose alone IABC has put together a Code of Ethics for
Professional Communicators.
The code is engineered around three different principles of
professional communication that applies throughout the world.
“These
principles assume that just societies are governed by a profound respect for
human rights and the rule of law; that ethics, the criteria for determining
what is right and wrong, can be agreed upon by members of an organization; and,
that understanding matters of taste requires sensitivity to cultural norms.”
The
concept of a communicators’ code of ethics is great, however I personally feel
that the “unknown about communicator” is what binds us as communicators.
Communication is simply mysterious and that alone should be a point emphasized
in the code.
We
deal with humans that cause our job to be mysterious and unique every time.
Within
every organization – and communication for that matter – we constantly have to
put things in perspective based on a company’s culture, what we want to
accomplish and lastly who the audience is. This is a reason why I am a public
relation major, for the lone fact that my job maintains a mutually beneficial
relationship between my company and its publics. And we all know our
organization cant success without its publics being happy, right? J
We,
as communicators, all are storytellers, navigators, interviewers and
investigators who collect data and ideas and build a sturdy framework for a
plan or story in a meaningful way to whomever receives it. And that is our job.
IABC believes that good professionals should have strong principles. This however,
I’ve been told, can become very tiresome with success varying from organization
to organization. Not to mention that most people don’t pay any attention to
this in the first place, which is the reason this task isn’t easily conquered.
Nonetheless,
communicators are consistent. We all have principles that we follow and we are
all communicators, so finding a way to weather the storm and get something done
professionally with social responsibility is achievable. Check out the code of
ethics for yourself and see what you think about them.
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