On December 5, 2011, the UK's Independent newspaper ran a story about how the Bureay of Investigative Journlism had posed as a (fake) investment vehicle for Uzbekistan and caught executives of PR company Bell Pottinger Group on film boasting of how they could employ 'dark arts' to improve that state's reputation.

Radio New Zealand's Saturday morning host Kim Hill interviewed Iain Overton, of the UK's Bureau of Investigative Journalism about the whole issue of reputation laundering - a two billion pound industry. 

In a meeting today with other communication colleagues, I was intrigued to hear one refer to the the use of 'dark arts,' and it raised this question of ethics in communication and PR.

Protecting and enhancing reputation isn't about laundering, it's about doing the right thing in the first place. That means being honest and open. For a PR company, that means working with a client on an ethical basis, not covering up their transgressions but helping them deal with the fallout and ensuring the client does business in the right way for the future.

The trouble comes when the PR company makes offers to cover up by for example, changing Wikipedia entries by removing factual but negative criticism and inserting favourable comment; targeting individuals with negative comment on Wiki; using SEO to push negative comment down the rankings and elevating positive comment using fictitious persona to do so; or as has happened here in NZ, developing fictitious 'activist' groups to infiltrate groups with opposing viewpoints. 

There are right ways and wrong ways to recover a reputation and build a good reputation. The UK example is one where the PR company itself has damaged its own reputation by saying one thing, and doing another. Honesty and transparency must be the hallmarks of reputation management. Practising 'dark arts' has no place in good communication and PR. 

Note: New Zealand's Public Relations Institute (PRINZ) has a Code of Ethics and carries out ethics training for its members. 

When the MV Rena grounded on the Astrolabe Reef on Wednesday 5 October, the local Bay of Plenty community had to wait five days before public meetings began.

Maritime NZ director Catherine Taylor apologised for that delay. But given the publicity during that time, the community was entitled to ask why it took so long. While no-one wanted misinformation to be distributed, it's essential, especially when livelihoods and the environment are at stake, for at least something to be said, face to face, to those to whom it matters.

It would have been gratifying to see Maritime NZ learning from others' mistakes. In Christchurch post the 22 February earthquake, it took 11 days before face-to-face street-corner meetings with communities began.

This is a failure on the part of all involved. There are plenty of resources available - both Maritime NZ and Civil Defence Emergency Management had plenty of offers for assistance from around the country. So why so slow? 

One of the first lessons of crisis management is to respond, to fill the vacuum before someone else fills it for you, maybe with incorrect information, rumour and speculation. 

One of the best ways to communicate is face-to-face and when it's a community based crisis, as both the above examples are, getting out onto the street corners and into local halls is essential.

Maritime NZ also had a fantastic opportunity to harness the community's energy and motivation early on and organised for the beach clean-ups (as was later initiated). Had they acted on this straight away as the oil came ashore, they would have won huge brownie points and reduced public anger. People wanted to be part of the solution. Instead, they were made to feel impotent and frustrated which was greatly reduced once they were acknowledged and involved practically in the clean-up.

Ms Taylor has said that Maritime NZ has learned from the Rena and good for her that she fronted up and apologised for their 'tardy response.'  

If we want to learn from our past year of disaster, then a study of crisis response is a good place to start:

• Fast response, even if to say 'we don't yet have a clear picture.'
• Enable two-way communication - use your stakeholders knowledge, perspectives
• Don't assume others know what you know
• Enlist external resources as support. They bring a clear and non-subjective perspective and expertise and relieve the pressure on your internal people  
• Keep your communications succinct - use bullet points 
• Get out into the community and engage directly, don't rely on electronic media. Use halls and street-corners, and old-fashioned posters and flyers to advertise them (as well as electronic media)
• Tailor your communication to your crisis. (In a natural disaster and power's out, don't assume people can or can't reach computers, radios or TV - use all types of media to reach out.) 
• If it's an organisational crisis, talk directly to your stakeholders, and ensure you know exactly how to reach everyone important to your company, including the wider community.  
• Review and practice your crisis plan. Build in as much as possible into business-as-usual processes, so that in a crisis, the response is automatic.