Professional Licensing: Not if but when
By Toni Muzi Falconi
Senior Counsel, Methodos spa
PRConversations.com

There’s a lot of talk about licensing lately. I read yesterday about the Public Relation Society’s decision to move forward on certification. They seem to be in lockstep with a developing global trend. The Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management has been moving quickly towards a global accreditation scheme which, even before being thoroughly discussed and approved, has already been adopted by Fapra (Federation of African Public Relations Associations). As the same time, Prisa (the South African Society, always considered a model for its accreditation model), under some pressure from the government, has recently decided to radically review its approach to the issue. And the Italian federation Ferpi, in preparation to being officially recognized by the government, is reviewing its access as well as continued professional training processes. Possibly the most advanced scheme, short of mandatory licensing, is in tiny Switzerland where the Federal Government assigns the national association to administer the public licensing of practitioners on a voluntary basis, i.e. those who wish to call themselves PR professionals must comply.

This issue has come up a number of times during a course I’m presently teaching in Global Relations at NYU’s Master Program in Public Relations. Here's my thinking: after having for decades stood against the idea, I am today in favor of a government licensing scheme for public relations practitioners. This, not because a licensing scheme might help improve the dismal reputation of our profession, but only because its pervasive impact on the public interest requires today generally accepted professional practices, directly or indirectly monitored by independent public authorities. Of course, I agree with many others from my generation, that the further away government stays from regulating any profession the better. Also, a government should not waste its time in regulating anything in the interest of protecting anyone’s reputation, but only the interest of protecting the public. In these last twenty years, most democratic countries have indeed stepped up their efforts to regulate specific public relations practices which are believed to bear visible impact on the public interest (financial, political, lobbying, health, security, consumer, etc.), but have done nothing to regulate the PR profession, per se.

However, to me government regulations make sense when they seek to ensure acceptable degrees of quality, fairness, timeliness, soundness and transparency of communication from private, public or social organizations which have demonstrable influence on voter, consumer and citizen attitudes, opinions or behaviors. From this perspective I believe, as a practitioner, it’s fair to say that just about every form of public relations activity today bears such impact, thus requiring overall regulation.

Having said this, the reputation issue would not be as severe as it now is, had professional associations around the world proved capable of:
a) Attracting a sufficient number of professionals to be truly representative (only 10 percent of practitioners belong);
b) Agreeing on and enforcing acceptable standards of behaviors (many ethic codes and statements out there, but no enforcement); and most importantly,
c) Taking notice of the increasing regulation of specific practices and actively participating in their formulation.

I also tell students that recent calls for regulation of public relations have come from senior members of our community (Burson, Edelman and others), mostly with the aim of improving the profession’s reputation rather than protecting the public interest; while those countries who have indeed regulated the profession per se (Brazil, Nigeria, Perù, Panama) had done so under an authoritarian regime in power and presumably to better control the media.

So if, as everyone says, it does impact on the public interest, the issue revolves around the ‘who in the hell is authorized and by whom to practice public relations’?  Call it what you like, licensing, accreditation, certification... whatever... are professional associations qualified to handle this by themselves? This is the core of the argument. Personally, I don’t think so... although, of course, associations are certainly essential to ensure licensing schemes are reasonably implemented on regional and global scales ensuring appropriate harmonization (take financial public relations for example... look at the different legal requirement for major market to major market).

All that said, I had some interesting feedback from my students. Here are a few excerpts from their final papers which I submit to your attention in the hope that leaders of our community, as well as volunteers and technocrats who run our associations, may take note:

Public relations practitioners, agencies, and university programs should all be licensed –writes Moose Tyler- ... the licensees would be practitioners, agencies, and university programs...The licensor should be a professional association.

Veronica Wasserman says: ...I understand the fear that most have... regarding government regulation and I don’t believe we need to go to that extreme—at least not yet—provided there is an industry-empowered professional body to regulate... There are still many within the profession against the idea of licensing. Nothing is going to get resolved if we don’t talk about it and consider the benefits it could have for the profession and its reputation...

Taryn Lott takes another approach: One obstacle to licensing is... that it violates the principle of free speech and the first amendment.... But I don’t see how licensing would have to violate the freedom of speech. It isn’t licensing communication, but instead it’s licensing the practice of public relations as a profession. Obviously, not everyone... could be regulated, considering that all employees of every organization, be it a company, school or government, affect the image of the organization and communicate with an audience of the organization and, therefore, in some way, practice public relations. Public relations practitioners, though, for this paper’s sake, are at the front of communications for organizations. With this in mind, regulation of the public relations profession should be put in place to protect the interest of the public...

While Kathleen Oliva adds: ...Licensing and accreditation can play a huge role in this campaign (pr for pr), showing consumers and the general public that this is a justifiable profession that is regulated nationally, holds higher standards than... other professions and regularly follows a code of ethics, not only voluntarily, but because it is the law. This will maintain the integrity of PR as a viable and legitimate profession....

But Eryn Rider instead says: ...Professional fields that require a license to operate are career fields where there is a clearly defined right and wrong way to operate. In our field, this is not the case and establishing a license would have too many variables. We are looked upon for our creativity, and if this were limited we would be able to communicate with the media and public as effectively. A stringent classification of our field would not be a positive change. The truth is, we will never have equal respect of certified doctors and lawyers because our schooling is not as rigorous. There is no doubt we need regulating. We should practice with a moral license, not a professional license....

While Geniece Sergeant argues: ...The mere fact that the government (who requires licensing in some cases to protect the people) has given its stamp of approval in the form of a license, will cause the public to discard their old views of public relations and position it in their minds as a profession intended to work for the good of the people....

And Kira Godfrey concludes: ...There are many pros and cons to licensing the profession. However utilizing the resources we have now, such as associations, training and education should be emphasized while further research is conducted on licensing. Without knowing how agencies and organizations industry-wide feel on hiring licensed practitioners, it is difficult to understand the importance licensing would have on our profession. With further research and continued education, younger generations of public relations students and practitioners will be able to lead the profession into the future.

Thoughts? Comments?