Do You Agree? The 4 Reasons Lying Is Becoming The #1 PR Tactic

I find lying abhorrent. It is not only ethically wrong, but when it is used as a PR tactic (whether knowingly or not) it is counterproductive.  It destroys credibility and credibility is the keystone of effective communications. Isn’t it? Maybe not.

I want to be clear: just because I am alarmed at how prevalent (and growing) lying is as a PR tactic, I am not an advocate for its use. Just the opposite. I’m hoping PR pros and others can use this article as an opportunity to voice your own concerns. Post your comments below.

1.    Lying often creeps into PR tactics because the liar’s definition of “lying” leaves a lot of wiggle room. As a PR pro, have you ever sat back at the end of a project and pat yourself on the back for creating a great “spin”? What is “spin” after all? Maybe some facts were left out of an explanation. Maybe a minor factor was elevated to an unwarranted position of importance. Maybe some unrelated emotional aspect of a story was given center stage and diverted attention (and the thrust of the news coverage) away from actual facts. Might another word for that “spinning” be “lying”? It depends on how you define “lie” in the first place. I was brought up by a father who was a career criminal prospector. His definition of lying had no wiggle room at all: if it wasn’t totally true, then it was a lie. Period. Is that the standard PR pros are using? A related question: are “white lies” acceptable? Former White House PR person Hope Hicks thinks so. She actually told the House Judiciary Committee that she did in fact tell “white lies” when she was working for the President, but they were about “small things.” Does that mean, if you mislead someone about something small it’s just a “white lie” -- not a “real” lie -- and thus somehow acceptable? In the case of Hope Hicks, her admission of telling "white lies" was ignored by Congress. As long as the definition of a lie is diluted, lying will increasingly become a PR tactic. What worries me is that “lying” is defined in increasingly vague terms. Do you agree?  Because the more vague a definition is, the less meaning it has. If you allow for a vague definition of "lying," you will have to conclude that lying is becoming accepted as a PR tactic. 

2.    Politics has adopted lying as SOP. I generally consider myself politically independent, but it is difficult to talk about the rise of lying without pointing out how President Trump has set a new standard for it. He’s told about 20,000 lies since assuming office 3-1/2 years ago -- about 15 lies a day. The problem is not only that Trump tells lies, but there are four attributes of his lies that have paved the way for lying to assume almost best practices status among politicians:

• He is allowed to get away with his lies. Although he was challenged by Chris Wallace in his TV interview of July 19, that related to only two things Trump asserted when in fact he lied on a number of other issues where he wasn't challenged at all. And without a challenge he was basically allowed to promote the lie.  Most disturbing is that other politicians do not challenge Trump’s lies. By so doing, they are giving tacit approval to his practice of lying. They are connoting: “Go ahead and lie, it’s OK. Maybe I’ll lie too.”
•  He tells quantitative lies that go unchallenged. Especially when referring to facts and figures about Covid-19, he often lies. Consider that again: he is given a pass for lies about numbers and science!  If anything indicates the use of lying to promote a particular way of seeing an issue, lying about quantitative facts without being forced to correct the lies is the zenith (or maybe more like the nadir) of the acceptance of lying as a part of our daily lives. It is a passport of entry for lies to become a PR tactic more broadly than just for politics.
• He also tells qualitative lies that go unchallenged. He calls people “great” when they have clearly failed in their jobs -- even when he has criticized them in the past). He praises convicted liar Roger Stone for having been subjected to an act of “unprecedented, historic corruption” -- which was far from the conclusion of the jury that found Stone guilty. Just a few hours after his “summit” with Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump tweeted “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” Huh? What about the caravans coming over our Southern border?  How about his assertion that protestors are anarchists? The list can go on, and the list can be expanded to include many more politicians from all political points of view. But one of Trump’s most remarkable contributions to the emergence of lie-telling as a PR tactic is that he has shown that an opinion can be asserted as an a priori truth when in fact there is no basis in fact for the opinion.
• He repeats lies even when the statement has been proven to be a lie. Trump is an out-in-the-open advocate of what he calls “truthful hyperbole,” which is another way of saying “lie.” Remarkably, he repeats such “exaggerations” over and over again (as when saying “we have the best Covid testing in the world”). He is a clear advocate of the point of view that holds that when a lie is repeated enough times it can be accepted as fact.

These attributes of how to lie, established in the political arena, are becoming more of a fact of life in all PR efforts. I do not mean to say all PR efforts are contaminated with lies -- just making the point that there is an evolution towards the acceptance of lies, and these are some of the ways that evolution is proceeding.  

3.    The unending news cycle makes lying easier. There is so much news that breaks every day that the media does not have the time to fact check (much less, correct) every lie that is disseminated. Lies and exaggerations (or call it what you will) are reported every day by journalists who have credibility and often do not realize that they are communicating lies. The challenge of their job is to file a report and then move on to the next story. That is an incubator for the proliferation of more lies. And as that evolution progresses, lying will become more and more a PR tactic.

4.     The very nature of groups on the web encourages lying. Each group on LinkedIn or any other social media, and each special interest website share the same interest: build the size and involvement of their audience. That means if a site is focused on fly fishing or chess or stock picking, the managers of the site need to promote articles that relate to those interests. They need to promote “news” that relates to those concerns of their members/subscribers. If that includes “spinning” the story so that it is of greater (maybe "unwarranted") interest to their members, well, OK, they’ll “spin” the story. If it means not including information that would make the posting of less interest, well, maybe they can tell a little “white lie.” It may be subtle or obvious, but it cannot be denied: the way the Internet rewards heavy traffic is a reason for why things are often exaggerated and why even obvious lies are given a pass. And the beat goes on: lying becomes more and more a PR tactic. 

?It would be nice if I am wrong for all the above, but I fear that I’m not. What do you think? Is lying becoming more and more a PR tactic? And, if so, what should be done about it?