Advocacy

From Member Input to Action
Responding to a member survey, PRSA set up the Advocacy Advisory Board (AAB) in 2002 to involve the Society in advocacy for the profession. The AAB’s mandate is to advance the public relations profession by sounding a clear, consistent PRSA voice on important issues of our time.

Advocacy helps PRSA carry out its larger mission of advancing the profession and the professional by establishing the Society as the leading authority on best practices and professional standards. Much of PRSA’s “standing” to speak out for the profession stems from its broad membership and professional resources as well as the PRSA Code of Ethics.

Many positions adopted by the AAB are, in fact, rooted in the Code. Typically, they revolve around tenets of ethical professional conduct and principles of truthful and transparent communications. Among the Code’s core principles is that “protecting and advancing the free flow of accurate and truthful information is essential to serving the public interest and contributing to informed decision making in a democratic society.” In that spirit, the Advocacy program also furthers the expressed desire of members to address issues impacting the free flow of ideas, a concept protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Milestones
From the beginning, the AAB set the tone for the kind of leadership it would provide. In 2003, it partnered with the Institute for Public Relations, the Arthur W. Page Society and the Public Affairs Council to file an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the Nike v. Kasky appeal. In this case, heralded as a test case for “corporate free speech,” PRSA advocated First Amendment protection for a corporation responding to public allegations of wrongdoing.

In that first year, the AAB also expressed opinions in support of openness, honesty and candor in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and against broadcast ownership regulations proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Since then, PRSA has taken on a broad array of issues with a range of activities including public position statements, op-eds, media interviews, comment submission on regulatory proposals, public forums in Washington, D.C., and testimony before Congress. More details appear at What is Advocacy?

In 2006, the AAB initiated a Chapter Advocacy Officer (CAO) program by which designated Chapter members serve as a conduit for information to and from the national advocacy program. The CAOs also track state and local issues for action at the national, state and local level, as appropriate. 

Moving Forward
In 2008, the AAB further refined its processes and procedures and added a proactive dimension to its work with a central annual theme to accompany its issues tracking and management. In 2008, the theme was the Clean & Fair Campaign, by which PRSA called for a halt to negative and personal attacks in campaign communications and the restoration of respectful discourse among candidates. Last year, the central theme centered around making a strong business case for the value proposition offered by public relations, supporting the discipline as an indispensable management function.