THE REASONS FOR MISREPESENTATION OF ETHICS IN THE PR INDUSTRY

There are several reasons, I believe, that account for the underrepresentation of blacks and asians in PR. In no particular order of impact:

1) A lack of awareness of the PR industry as a career and its importance in the corporate arena.

2) The failure of the industry, as a whole, to actively promote itself to blacks and asians touting the opportunities for success (i.e. money) resulting in too few taking the classes or seeking the experience to pursue PR careers

3) The fact there are proportionately fewer minority businesses that would employ a PR firm and many of them feel in necessary to use a white company to receive "the best" service.

4) PR is not as "visible" as, say, TV news reporting. As more blacks and asians appeared on tv, it became more of an option for others to say "That's what I want to be when I grow up." The cultural/racial schism is perpetuated by the lack of visibility of "people like me" in the industry.

5)The unfortunate history of PR firms who have hired minorities and gave them menial duties or... little or no "learning curve" before firing them and saying that the "minority experiment" didn't work

6) But, it seems like there must be a problem in HR and account teams at major and boutique agencies. I do believe young and seasoned multicultural PR practitioners approach and interview at these agencies but for some reason or another they are looked over. Thus, causing them to question their career path in PR.