By Mary Beth West, The Pulse Business, Mary Beth West; The Pulse Business
Pressure to sacrifice honesty for power stokes disinformation
MARYVILLE, Tenn., July 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — A new public relations industry scan of PR leaders in the U.K. and U.S. has uncovered troubling signs that unethical “organizational gaslighting” is on the rise in PR agency-client relationships – impacting whether (or not) truthful information is given to news media and the wider public.
The term “gaslighting” was Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year” in 2022 and refers to individuals or organizations using manipulative communication techniques to maintain power by misleading, deceiving, and abusing the trust of others.
The industry scan, funded by Tennessee PR industry veteran Mary Beth West and conducted by The Pulse Business in London, gauged feedback from 50 leaders in the U.K. and U.S. PR industry from late May to early June 2025.
PR leaders cited “organizational gaslighting” problems in PR, such as encountering pressure from clients to compromise facts, deflect criticism, deny reality, or shift blame – tactics that violate global PR ethics codes.
The inquiry revealed that more than half of responding PR leaders have observed an increase over the past year in gaslighting behaviors across the PR and communication industry – specifically, “the deliberate manipulation of people’s understanding of the truth.”
When these PR leaders were asked by The Pulse Business if they believed their team members were exposed to gaslighting by their own clients, some 75% reported they were. Only about one-fourth of respondents reported no exposure to gaslighting by clients at all.
Many participants in the analysis revealed they observed organizational gaslighting from clients in various forms, such as:
“Countering”: Assertively seeking to make the PR team doubt their own expertise”Denying”: Pretending nothing bad is happening, even when the facts suggest otherwise”Diverting” / “Deflecting”: Giving different explanations to the PR team for what’s going on, rather than the obvious or factual explanation”Ignoring”: Refusing to listen properly to good PR counsel or discuss candidly a problem at hand”Stereotyping”: Making broad generalizations to confuse or undermine the PR team’s opinions”Trivializing”: Casually dismissing the PR team by claiming they are overreacting
“This feedback we gathered – including comments from personal interviews – indicates that ‘gaslighting’ is more than just a buzzword,” West said. “It’s a serious ethics problem faced within the PR industry workforce.”
“Equally bad from an ethics standpoint is when PR agencies instigate gaslighting practices themselves by errantly advising clients that such tactics are the ‘strategic’ thing to do,” West said.
Plans for more robust, formal academic study of the organizational gaslighting phenomenon in PR can be accessed at marybethwest.com.
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SOURCE Mary Beth West; The Pulse Business
