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You are responsible for an internal employee newsletter. A freelance photographer provides several photos you intend to use in the next issue. Your supervisor quickly reviews and approves the newsletter before leaving for an extended vacation. You are nearing your deadline and in final preparation of the files, you notice fine print copyright information by the photographer in the corner of the images. Which one of the following is the best course of action? A) This is work for hire so you can follow the directive of your supervisor and proceed with publication of the newsletter. B) Contact the freelance photographer directly to get verbal approval for publication. C) Coordinate with your legal counsel to review the contract terms before taking further action. D) Include the copyright information from the photographer in the photo caption and proceed with publication of the newsletter. - CORRECT ANSWER C) Coordinate with your legal counsel to review the contract terms before proceeding with publication. (EPR 10th, pgs 157-158 and PR: S&T 10th, pgs 302-
You are the public relations manager at a automotive manufacturer, reporting to the company president. Your company is about to announce an expansion, which will be a major economic boost for the community, at a press conference. Your boss would like to share some additional details about the acquisition "off
the record" with several community partners following the press conference at a VIP event, which some media may attend. What counsel would you offer your boss?
- We trust our partners and this will improve our community relations
- It is acceptable to share these details if we inform the audience that what we share is off the record
- It is acceptable to share these details if reporters do not attend the event
- You should never share things off the record unless you really want it t get out
- CORRECT ANSWER 4. You should never share things off the record unless you really want it t get out (EPR p.231) Which of the following two statements are correct in order for you to use these photos in ads? A. The company hired and paid the photographer for the professional event photos and owns them for future use. B. These photos can only be used if the photographer has provided written permission to reproduce the event photos beyond the original purpose of an internal newsletter. C.The employees and family members photographed must have a signed consent release to have their photos used in an ad for the company. D. Company employees are not required to sign releases, but their family members would need to have signed releases to be used in the ads - CORRECT
You assign your intern the job of finding a royalty free image to illustrate a blog. She brings back a great photo - it's from BING images. What law do you talk to her about? A) Copyright B) Plagiarism C) Slavish copyright D) Defamation - libel - CORRECT ANSWER A. the image on Bing may be copyrighted, you need to show her how to check. Plagiarism is when you pass off someone's else's work as your own or without attribution; Slavish copyright is when you copy word for word, and defamation- libel is when you disseminate a public falsehood about a person or organization. Jonah Lehrer, the 31 year old wunderkind author of Imagine, was recently fired from the New Yorker. He was caught for several violations - made up quotes including one attributed to Bob Dylan. A Dylan scholar hounded him for the source and Jonah had to confess he made it up. The publisher of Wired.com hired a journalism professor to review his work for authenticity. The professor discovered Lehrer paraphrased without attribution and some of his conclusions were found to be from the work of another scientist. Which of the above are violations of copyright? A) Making up quotes B) Paraphrasing without attribution
C) Copying another scientist's work for his own book - CORRECT ANSWER Correct answer: C. a is unethical, b is plagiarism. Your new employee forgot to get an intern to sign a release form for her photo for the annual report. He also secretly recorded a phone conversation with a client that he was afraid would turn confrontational. As you debate whether to keep this employee in your agency, you have him write an essay on which of the following torts? Choose 2. A) Public disclosure B) False Light C) Intrusion D) Appropriation - CORRECT ANSWER Correct answer - C & D. Secretly recording a conversation is a violation of intrusion and using a person's image or name without their permission is Appropriation. a is embarrassing facts or pictures that come out in public and B is when a truthful statement is out of context and puts a person or organization in a misleading context. Your public relations department wants to share a magazine article from another nonprofit organization with your members. For which of the following scenarios would you need to obtain permission from the copyright owner to share the article? (Choose 3.) A) If you email the article to the members of your organization
Source: AP Stylebook 2012, Briefing on Media Law, p. 333. As the public relations director for your company one of the functions of your office is to take photos at official company events. For this particular event your company hires a photographer outside of the company to take photos. One of the employees emails you and asks for copies of a few of the photos. What is the best response to provide to the employee? A. I will provide you the photos after I provide them for legal review. B. The organization owns an employee's work done on behalf of the organization. C. The photographs can be found on the company's website and you can select the photos you would like to use. D. The photos that the company owns the copyrights that will be placed on the company's website once they are approved by the legal office. - CORRECT ANSWER Correct Answer D Reference: APR Study Guide Edition 5, page. 106 You are the manager of a public relations department for a nonprofit organization. Your department director has asked you to help with selecting a summer intern. She says she would prefer that the intern will not be paid and receive college credit for the internship instead. You are unsure about the terms of this agreement. Specifically, you are concerned about whether it is ethical to offer the internship as an unpaid position. What is your next step in deciding how you will advise the department director? A) Identify the key values that you need to consider in making your decision. B) Identify ethical principles to guide you in making your decision.
C) Identify who will be affected by your decision. D) Identify the economic, legal, and social factors that may influence your decision. - CORRECT ANSWER Answer: D (APR Study Guide, page 21. After you have defined the specific ethical issue or conflict, the next step is to identify internal and external factors that may influence the decision.) You are the communications director at a youth serving nonprofit. The president of the organization asks you to start taking photographs of the youth members during the programs and posting them through social media to highlight the good work the organization is doing. It seems like a great idea, so you: A) Start clicking away with your camera and begin creating a social media campaign utilizing the pictures. B) Go ask the program staff for permission to take photographs of the children to post. C) Review perimeters of taking and using photos of youth under 18 with your legal team. D) Begin creating a media release form to give to the youth members to sign off on. - CORRECT ANSWER C Coordinate with legal team for counsel on taking photographs of youth members and retaining the proper permissions for use. Remember First Amendment protections and that minors cannot give legal consent. (EPR 10th, pgs 162-163) You are the Public information Officer at a Federal Agency. While attending a Business Networking meeting, you receive a request for the medical records of your employees from an insurance agent so that he might provide some quotes on group coverages. You:
Rationale:
- Define the specific ethical issue/conflict. Company policies are prohibiting a customer from receiving a full refund on a product they purchased. The customer has threatened to escalate the issue to the media if they do not receive the refund, which could become a reputation issue for your company despite the company's policies.
- Identify internal/external factors (e.g., legal, political, social, economic) that may influence the decision. Social and political factors influence the decision here as the community is sensitive to / protective of the treatment of war veterans.
- Identify key values. ADVOCACY (understanding the sensitive nature of your customer's background and their service field), FAIRNESS (to company policies and to customers), LOYALTY (to company, customers)
- Identify the parties who will be affected by the decision and define the public relations professional's obligation to each. COMPANY - Your loyalty must remain to the company that you work for. You are looking out for the reputation of your company and do not want this incident to negatively affect its reputation.
CUSTOMER - The customer deserves fair and honest communication and support from your company and you are seeking that support on their behalf. You must, however, separate yourself from developing an intimate relationship with the customer; it's not your role to act on the company's behalf in providing solutions directly for them but to instead act as their advocate. STAKEHOLDERS - Your obligation to the stakeholders is looking out for the best interest in their investment to the company, which may be threatened if the company's reputation is at stake. EMPLOYEES - Your employees will be your company's greatest advocates if policies and procedures are communicated in a transparent and consistent way. You are the public relations manager at an active adult community reporting to the community's developer. The community is about to announce an expansion, which shows growth, and is intended to drive awareness of available lots. Your VP would like to share this news via the company's blog and Facebook page. What are the benefits of using these information channels?
- Actively engage stakeholders to create a conversation
- Reach a broad audience
- Third part credibility
- The results are easily measured - CORRECT ANSWER Correct Answer: 1 and 4
state legislators. These efforts are examples of which communication theory or model (choose one). A. Diffusion of Innovations Theory B. Agenda Setting Theory C. Shannon-Weaver Model - CORRECT ANSWER Answer: B - Agenda Setting Theory - Source: APR Study Guide (page 26) - The agenda setting process is a very fluid, dynamic attempt to get the attention of the media, the public, and/or policy makers. The agenda is a "set of issues" that in order for them to become effective and part of the process, must be communicated. Reply You work for a major multinational corporation which has just implemented a new salary and bonus administration program. The director of compensation calls you into his office and lets you know that the calculations allow management to receive a bonus but based on the formula, the manufacturing employees did not earn a bonus. He wants you to put a "spin" on this scenario for the communications plan. The scenario best demonstrates which ethical principles of public relations practices. Choose two. A. Avoid conflicts of interest.
B. Do not damage the reputation of others. C. Use honesty and integrity as your guide. D. Ensure accuracy and truth. E. Deal fairly with all publics. - CORRECT ANSWER ANSWERS: C and D. Rationale and Source: APR Study Guide Ethics and Law Common Ethical Principles of Public Relations Practice, page 20 and 21. The two best are C and D. A and B pertain more to agency relationships. E is a possibility. However C and D , particularly not to disseminate false and misleading information takes a higher priority. An employee in the sales department has turned in her two week notice, and one month later, your supervisor calls you in to discuss a negative posting on a company review site that she believes was the former employee.Your supervisor accuses this former employee and would like to explore the option of pressing charges for defamation of character. Your supervisor asks you to confirm that the former employee made these same negative statements in her exit interview.Which one of the following is the best course of action?
A. Allow the group to be listed because they are a parent group. B. Inform the group that there are schools without PTO's and they should help establish a group at one of those schools. C. Inform the group that you can't accomodate their request because the list is for PTO groups that are attached to a school. D. Tell the group that you need to talk to your boss and you will get back in touch with them. - CORRECT ANSWER The correct answer is C. APR study guide page 20. "Maintain the integrity of communication channels." You are the Public Relations Manager for a company that is contracted by the Federal Government. The National Sales Manager has asked that the company website be updated to include testimonials and quotes from various departments in the organization, customers and potential clients, and affiliated membership organization partners. You agree and begin to gather quotes directly from sales team members and management; however, your third party affiliates tell you to just pull from their website. Which of the following protects the right to include such information? a. Freedom of Information Act b. First Amendment c. Commercial Speech d. Copyright Protection e. Consent - CORRECT ANSWER Correct answer: e
Citation: Cutlip and Center's Effective Public Relations. 10th ed. Chapter 6. On your first day on the job, you learn that one of the company's servers has been hacked and client information has been compromised. Information has been leaked to the press about the security breach and reporters are calling. The CEO asks for your counsel. He also wants you to limit the amount of information given to key publics as a "security" precaution. You immediately identify the ethical dilemma and work on gathering data to justify your decision regarding the best course of action. What is your next step? Choose one option below. a) Work with internal departments to compile a contact list of key publics. b) Meet with the company's designated spokesperson to coordinate media interviews. c) Review company policies and SEC regulations to influence your decision. d) Identify key values and ethical principles to support your recommendation. - CORRECT ANSWER Answer is c. Reference: APR study guide pg 21-22. Example of the ethical decision-making process. You represent a large pharmaceutical company. Your client asks you to develop a public relations campaign for a new drug that will be released soon. What is your first step? a) start planning an official launch party b) research the industry and similar products in the market
relations campaign. What best states that you are able to use the photo of the painting as your visual centerpiece for the community art initiative public relations campaign without violating copyright permission? (Choose one.) A. The painting was never copyrighted. B. The photo appeared in the Life Magazine more than 75 years ago. C. The photographer who supplied the photo is unknown. D. The artist created the piece before 1990. - CORRECT ANSWER Answer B. - EPR - Chapter 6, page 157- 158 The photo is now in the public domain in that it was first published in 1916 by Life Magazine, which is a copyrighted magazine, for which the issue's copyright has expired according to the 1909 Copyright Act. You are a Public Relations Director for a major medical center, and are being asked to set up a photo shoot for your "Annual Report" - a publication sent to donors worldwide. You are photographing your local mayor, chief medical officer and a pediatric patient, who has appeared in numerous campaigns, in the past. The photographer is eager to begin shooting, and you ask for all three to sign a consent form. The photographer says, "it's not necessary to get forms signed, since one of the people is an elected official and public figure, and pictures are part of their job description, as they interact with their publics." What do you do? a. You allow the photographer to take pictures
b. You ask the mayor, medical officer, and patient's parent to each sign a consent form c. You get the participant's verbal permission to take pictures d. You contact your hospital's legal department - CORRECT ANSWER Answer: b
- You must always have each participant sign a consent form if they are taking part in any pictures, etc, in which their likeliness is being used. Reference: Cutlip & Center's Effective Public Relations, Chapter 6, Legal Considerations, page 144. You manage the Facebook page for a prominent software company. Last month you posted a link to an article that reported on trends in your industry and included a quote from an industry analyst who stated that the CEO of your main competitor was on anti-depressants and "crazy." You featured that quote in your post. You just found out that this quote was based on information from a leaked medical record. Now your competitor is threatening to sue your company for defamation. What should be your course of action? A) Claim that you were only quoting someone else accurately as well as using accurate information (Fair and accurate report) and therefore are protected so your post is defensible in court. B) Tell your supervisor the situation and let them handle it. C) Post a full retraction and apology on your Facebook page and engage your legal department about your actions. - CORRECT ANSWER C Citation: The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law 2013, pp 328 - 368;
