Minimizing Harm

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As a public relations writer, your goal is to build a positive relationship with your audience. Maintaining relationships requires mindfulness, making sure not to harm your institution's reputation and credibility.

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The convenience of the internet unfortunately makes it pretty easy to damage your school's image. As an HEPR work-study, you should try your best to minimize harm when writing your stories, avoiding plagiarism, preventing copyright infringement, or overlooking privacy.

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Plagiarism

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The idea of plagiarism is pretty simple: if you didn't make it, don't make it seem like you did. If you've used somebody else's work or content and you didn't attribute credit to the original author, you've committed plagiarism. Without attribution, you've made it seem like the work is your own.

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Plagiarism can occur in almost any form. For feature news stories, plagiarism occurs most commonly in the form of:

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• Words, sentences, and quotes from other authors

• Statistics or facts that are not common knowledge

• Photos and videos created by professionals

• Drawings, graphics, or charts

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The easiest way to avoid plagiarism is to create your own content. Using your smartphone, you can write text, take photos, record videos, and more without any professional experience.

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The second best way to avoid plagiarism is to always cite and attribute your sources. Even in the case of user-generated content provided by students, it's always best practice to include a caption describing who took the photo, recorded the video, etc.

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Copyright

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According to Copyright.gov, copyright is "a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship." Protected by Title 17, U.S. Code, original works protected by copyright include books, music, video games, paintings, photographs, and much more. The law provides copyright owners with certain exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, sell, display, and perform.

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Copyright infringement and plagiarism are similar ideas, but whereas plagiarism is only unethical, copyright infringement is illegal. If you've used another creator's original work without permission or a license, you've broken the law.

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There are a few defenses such as fair use that allow the copyrighted content to be used under certain circumstances, but the factors of fair use are not easy to meet. In the case of higher education public relations specifically, it would be hard to argue that using copyrighted materials for feature stories does not have a commercial purpose.

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Our first recommendation is to always create your own original content for your story. Sometimes that's not possible, though. If you really want to include a copyrighted work, it never hurts to ask for permission by contacting the original author. Some authors make their work available for use through Creative Commons.

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Privacy

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Issues of privacy may occur if you make an individual's intimate information public without permission. Private information can include but are not limited to a person's sexuality, health history, education, income, personal and familial relationships.

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Privacy Laws

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Not only is it unethical to invade someone's privacy, in some cases, it's also illegal. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law that protects individual health information, and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protect private educational information from becoming public.

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As an HEPR writer, it's rare that you'll ever use such sensitive information in a feature story, but you should be aware of privacy rights.

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Photos and Likeness

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Privacy can also be infringed upon by using someone's likeness without permission. It's standard practice to include photos of any faculty, students, or staff that you quote in your story, but you should always get permission from them before taking their picture and publishing it.

 

Check with your office to see if your school requires a media release form, which is a document you can have people sign to give permission to use their likeness. If your school doesn't require a form, always ask verbally before taking someone's picture or ask your source for a photo of their choice via email.

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Borrowing Content

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There are two sources for you to borrow content such as photos and videos without worrying about legal issues: public domain and Creative Commons. While you should always try to make multimedia of your own, these two sources can be a good solution in a pinch.

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Public Domain

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Most creative works are protected by copyright law, but if a work's copyright term has expired or it doesn't meet the requirements of protection, it may be a part of the public domain. Content in the public domain isn't "owned" by any one person or group can be used without permission.

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There a number of good resources for public domain content:

 

• Getty Open Content Program

• Metropolitan Museum

• Youtube Studio's Public Domain Music

 

Note that just because you can use public domain content, doesn't mean that you should. Your feature story needs to promote your college, and the best way to do that is to show off the college. While public domain can be useful in some situations, such as using a picture of Renaissance Art in a story on the Art History program, your content should prioritize including visuals of campus, student life, and other things prospective students will want to see.

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Creative Commons

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If you can't find what you're looking for in the public domain, another

resource you can use is the Creative Commons. A non-profit that

encourages sharing content, the Creative Commons is a database of

licensed images, audio clips, videos that are free to use so long that

you attribute the original creator.

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Creative Commons images can be especially useful to you as an

HEPR writer if your story covers an upcoming event that you don't

have content for yet. For example, if Michelle Obama is coming to

your campus as a guest speaker, you can search for a photo of her

and include it in your story so long as you follow Creative Commons' criteria for attribution (Figure 1).

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Attribution

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Whether you're using public domain, creative commons, a quote you didn't get yourself, photos or videos from a professional contracted by your institution, or user-generated content, you always need to attribute the original author of any work you inlcude in your feature story.

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Attribution is giving credit to the creator of a work. In your feature story, you can do this in a number of ways.

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According to...

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Sometimes, attribution is as easy as saying where you got something from. If you're including statistics, the results of a study, or uncommon knowledge as supplementary information, it's best practice to state who or where you got that information from.

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Scheduling

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Not a lot of people are going to see your story if you share it at 3 a.m. Deciding when to post is just as important as where you post. According to a 2020 study by SproutSocial, the following are the best times to post for higher education:

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Facebook

• Best times: Wednesday at 9 a.m. and Saturday at 5 p.m.

• Best day: Wednesday

• Worst day: Sunday

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Hyperlinks

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Notice in the prior example how the original source wasn't only named, but the webpage to the full study was provided via a hyperlink. Hyperlinking is great in that it both credits the original author and adds credibility to your story. Further, hyperlinking boosts SEO and makes your story more visible to search engines.

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Crediting

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The Creative Commons lays out the characteristics of an

ideal attribution, encouraging you to include:

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Summary

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Your college's reputation is an important factor in the prospect student decision making process. To protect the credibility and trustworthiness of your school, you should always be mindful of engaging in ethical and legal behaviors when writing your feature story.

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Now that you've learned how to attribute borrowed content, read on to learn how to report your topic, tell stories with visuals, and engage prospective students.

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References and Further Reading

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Blechner, A. J. (2020, October 9). Finding public domain & creative commons media. Harvard Law School Library. https://guides.library.harvard.edu/Finding_Images.

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Creative Commons. (2019, November 14). Use & remix. https://creativecommons.org/use-remix/.

 

University of Illinois at Chicago. (n.d.). Avoiding plagiarism. University Library. https://researchguides.uic.edu/etds/plagiarism.

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University of Illinois at Chicago. (n.d.). Copyright and fair use: Fair use. University Library. https://researchguides.uic.edu/copyright/fairuse.

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U.S. Copyright Office. (n.d.). What is copyright? Copyright.gov. https://copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/.