Pressing Business

There are at least five lessons for the public manager in all this: (1) use common sense, (2) go on record, (3) establish ethical credibility, (4) tell it as it is, and (5) tell it as it should be. Let us take them one at a time.

1. Use common sense. Be realistic. Learn what to expect from the media—nothing; that is its calling and professional duty. Be prepared for special scrutiny, not special treatment.

2. Go on record. Professional survival skills include making it difficult to be misinterpreted, misunderstood, or misquoted. Giving good interviews and writing good press releases are useful professional skills. Although professional standards may urge anonymity, a public manager may not always have a choice in the matter.

3. Establish ethical credibility. Take a hand in training; help break in media novices to establish a good working relationship and personal rapport and to expose them to the legal and professional standards operating in the jurisdiction. This exposure can include workaday ethical choices and even a crisis or two.

4. Tell it as it is. Tell the truth. Let the media know they are dealing with a person they can trust. Lying is both unethical and impractical. Surely, we all make mistakes; the key is to admit them and not repeat them. Ethics restrains deception but does not prevent error.

5. Tell it as it should be. The fifth and final proposal shifts from self-protection to plea bargaining. It invokes a senior manager’s responsibility to protect a blameless sub- ordinate who is unjustly accused. It also invokes the value of compassion, which is more compelling when not self-serving. If an otherwise promising subordinate with a valid excuse (meaning a reason to be treated as if innocent) is threatened, a manager can call out the artillery: reason. One forceful argument is that only hypocrites will respond to a call for perfection. Another is the need to allow for human error and personal growth. The public manager can also urge caution along with compassion by suggesting that even when moral judgments are wrong, the personal damage persists. Also the senior manager is responsible for who does what on his watch. The senior manager’s purpose here is to speak up, not cover up, and keeping subordinates’ trust demands both charity and courage.