New Lobby Chief Says PR Ethics Codes Inadequate

The recently appointed head of the International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO), Fleishman-Hillard Executive Vice President John Saunders, believes the PR industry needs to toughen up its ethics rules. ICCO is a global umbrella group for PR consultancies and their trade associations. Following the recent ICCO summit in Prague, Saunders told PR Week, "We need to devote more energy to ethics. If we are to advise on reputation management, we must be above reproach." Saunders believes that existing PR industry codes of ethics are inadequate. "We need to impose more rigorous standards on ourselves, before they are imposed on us by others," he said.