I read with interest an article this summer that indicates executives are influenced more by the court of public opinion as a catalyst to modifying their behavior in a positive fashion, than they are by even a court of law.

In the article that appeared in Bulldog Reporters Daily Dog, New Study Suggests Fear Of Negative Media Coverage — Not Regulations, Shareholder Threats Or Good Ol’ Principles — Keeps Companies In Line Ethically, MarketWatch reporter Thomas Kostigen says that fear of negative news coverage is an important catalyst that keeps executive behavior in line.

Quoting research done by Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, the article points to media coverage that highlighted the compensation package received by Richard Grasso, who was chair of the New York Stock Exchange in 2003. Once news of Mr. Grasso’s pay package came to light in a public forum, many directors who had previously voted for this package changed their position and the result, as the saying goes, is now fodder for history books.

It is easy for those of us outside the media to criticize them for many things, but there is no doubt that they have an important role to play in holding up a mirror to the actions, activities and behavior of individuals and organizations, and that the act of looking into the mirror can change behavior. “When the media reports a story,” claims the article in Bulldog, “reputations are at stake. And this is what people respond to: the threat of being associated with something negative.”

So what contribution do we make to this discussion, as public relations and media relations practitioners? Do we dig our heads in the sand and say “it’s not up to us to influence the ethical behavior of our internal and external clients?” Do we advance the perspective that we’re like lawyers in that, regardless of whether our client is guilty, our job is to advocate vigorously on his or her behalf? Or do we take a proactive approach and use the threat of being “outed” as a catalyst for positive change in managing client behavior?

As I’ve said before in this forum, my perspective leans to the latter. I think we are at the edge of an amazing opportunity in our business. (Notice that I didn’t use the word “profession.” Like academics, I don’t think we are a profession in the truest sense of the word. Indeed, I don’t think we ever will become a profession unless we take advantage of this opportunity — but that’s fodder for another post.)

We have a choice. We can embrace the concept of providing ethical advice to clients as part of our suite of offerings — insight into how to balance right from wrong, better from worse, responsible from irresponsible — or we can ignore ethics and be limited to helping clients communicate decisions that are already made (by thinking up clever key messages).

The danger of being limited to helping organizations communicate decisions after they’ve been made is that this potentially marginalizes who we are as practitioners and — dare I say it? — professionals. If we’re not careful, we will only be provided with a portion of the story before we help an organization take its information public and look into mirrors that are virtually everywhere in today’s information-driven world. I don’t know about you, but that prospect disturbs me.

I yearn for the day when a media, public or investor relations practitioner quits a job or resigns an account and a company’s share price takes a tumble.

For when that day comes, we will have truly arrived.