The KPMG scandal has been described as a PR crisis.

I understand why: the communication has been poor, the optics are dreadful, and the handling of scrutiny has appeared defensive, legalistic, and insufficiently alive to the human, political, and public-interest aspects of the story.

The allegations surrounding the Australian firm are serious: misuse of confidential client information, the treatment of a whistleblower, and severe governance failures. These actions and their subsequent fallout have so far led to leadership resignations, regulatory scrutiny and parliamentary pressure, with commercial consequences almost certain to follow.

But calling it a PR crisis risks mistaking the symptom for the cause.

PR shouldn’t be used to manufacture values

The KPMG scandal is first and foremost an ethics crisis. Then a governance crisis. Then a leadership crisis. The PR crisis comes after that. That distinction matters because it speaks to the heart of what public relations is, and what it should never become.

PR should never be used to manufacture values; it should amplify them by helping an organisation explain what it is doing, why it matters, who is affected, what is changing, and how it will be held accountable. It can help leaders communicate clearly, reduce speculation, provide guidance, reassure stakeholders and show a credible path forward. But it cannot credibly invent integrity after the fact.

That is the point too often missed when a corporate scandal is lazily described as a PR problem; it implies the organisation’s real issue is messaging, presentation or media management, when the deeper issue may be conduct.

Even the best publicist can’t spin misconduct into credibility. That would be like piping icing around the edges of mud and trying to sell it as mud cake.

The point of no return

There is also a reputational contradiction at the centre of the story: a firm accused of........

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