Reputation Management Is Now a Governance Issue

Reputation is no longer simply a communication matter. It has become a governance issue.

The KPMG whistleblower review, the ACMA finding against Four Corners and growing concern about social media and deepfakes all point to this change.

Legal compliance alone cannot protect reputation. Nor can factual accuracy or greater media exposure. Conduct, context and stakeholder experience are now central to how an organisation is judged.

The independent review of KPMG Australia, released on 17 September, found that the firm had taken an “overly legalistic” approach to whistleblower allegations. It also found that KPMG failed to protect the person who raised the concerns.

The Andrews Group review recommended establishing an integrity office, appointing an independent whistleblower protection officer and examining the firm’s ethical culture more broadly.

The consequences are now being played out publicly. Major clients have reconsidered their audit relationships with KPMG. An internal cultural failure has become an external crisis of confidence.

The lesson is clear. How an organisation treats internal dissent is an early test of its culture, integrity and reputation.

This is a key reason as to why Communication counsel should be involved when serious concerns are first raised, not simply when an investigation becomes public. It also highlights that a response may be legally defensible and still appear evasive, punitive or ethically wrong.

Experience has shown repeatedly that trust is not protected by winning a legal argument while losing the confidence of employees, clients and other stakeholders.

The ACMA finding against Four Corners, also released on 17 September, provides another example.

ACMA found that the program’s report on the Australian War Memorial breached impartiality requirements. Its concerns included the framing of the story, emotive language, the selection and treatment of interviewees and insufficient context. One related complaint about factual accuracy was not upheld.

The ABC disputed the finding and warned against imposing “false balance”. This raises an important question about the difference between accuracy, fairness and impartiality.

Correcting individual facts may not correct the overall impression created by a story. Communication planning must consider the framing of the issue, the missing context, the stakeholders being heard and the narrative created as a whole.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s appearance on Nikki Osborne’s Bush Deep podcast demonstrated the same risk from another direction. Preparation should consider not only the likely questions, but also the platform, audience, tone and wider reputational consequences.

This issue highlights that media engagement is only one part of strategic communication and that it should never be mistaken for the whole strategy. Despite the penchant in many organisations and government departments for media engagement, it is proving more and more that it should be considered as only one part of strategic communication.

Australia’s restrictions on social media access for children under 16 also show why reputation now belongs in the boardroom under the watchful eye of the PR leaders. The proposed changes would give users greater control over content selected by algorithms. This approach is also being considered in Europe with the European Commission’s proposed KIDS Act. It would require platforms to demonstrate that their services are age-appropriate and safe by design.

This direction highlights that digital safety is moving beyond compliance. Organisations communicating with young people should expect closer scrutiny of the platforms they use, the audiences they target, the data they collect and the safeguards they apply. This is where the Pub Test highlights that meeting the minimum legal requirement may not meet community expectations.

Deepfakes add another layer of risk. Meta’s Oversight Board recently ordered the removal of deepfakes targeting a politician and a community campaigner, describing existing safeguards as inadequate.

Australian organisations should no longer regard synthetic content as a distant threat. Crisis plans now need rapid verification processes, authenticated executive channels, clear authority to respond and reliable ways to reach stakeholders directly.

As all PR professionals know; speed matters, but so do accuracy and credibility. A false narrative can take hold while an organisation is still deciding who has permission to respond.

We are now in an era when reputation can no longer be left to communication teams to manage after decisions have been made. Strategic communication and senior PR counsel must be part of the governance process while decisions are being shaped through testing their likely impact, identifying stakeholder concerns and helping ensure that both the decisions and the conduct behind them withstand internal and external scrutiny.

For more reading on trust, reputation and strategic communication visit RMA Blogs or contact Robert Masters

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