Channel 4’s Dirty Business raises issues of ethics for PR pros

Like many, I watched Channel 4’s drama-documentary Dirty Business – Inside The Water Scandal with a mix of fascination and unease. It’s compelling television but also deeply uncomfortable. The programme paints a troubling picture of blurred lines between a water company and its regulator, the Environment Agency, and the real-world consequences when systems fail - from polluted rivers to devastating personal tragedies.

What stayed with me wasn’t just the institutional failure but the human one - the role of those who explain and defend organisations under scrutiny. Although clearly dramatised, one scene stood out: senior communicators rehearsing familiar lines like “safety is our first priority” alongside a flailing CEO. It felt hollow and disingenuous - less about answering serious questions of genuine public interest than going through the motions and dodging scrutiny around systemic failure. As a fellow communicator, I found it quietly uncomfortable to watch.

Fifteen years ago, I worked in public affairs for a major UK water company. I engaged regularly with MPs, ministers, and the media, often alongside press office colleagues. I wouldn’t have stayed in that role had I believed the organisation’s communications were anything less than honest and professional. That wasn’t just a personal preference - it reflected the standards expected of a then member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Even earlier, as a junior press officer in a nuclear industry beset by constant public relations challenges, I was given a simple assurance by my boss: you will never be asked to lie. It was a quiet but powerful line in the sand - and one that, in my experience, held firm. It also gave me the personal confidence in many communication roles since to challenge anything that I felt was less than honest.

Today, I’m less certain that line is as clear.

The documentary highlights the shift around 2010 toward ‘operational self-regulation’ in the water sector - companies effectively marking their own homework. Whether caused by austerity, deregulation, or a broader post-2008 recalibration of corporate norms, it raises a difficult question: has something shifted in how organisations interpret the rules - and, by extension, the truth?

A growing public mood

There is also a wider, more troubling issue here. Programmes like this resonate because they tap into a growing public mood: a sense that ordinary people are increasingly powerless when faced with large, complex institutions. Whether it’s water quality, financial misconduct, or my experience as a resident opposing a speculative developer in my community, the pattern can feel familiar - decisions taken far away, accountability diffused, and the burden of proof often falling on ordinary people rather than corporations.

This sense of helplessness matters. It erodes trust not just in individual organisations but in the systems meant to oversee them. And when trust breaks down, communicators are left trying to bridge a gap that is no longer about information but about a collapse in trust they did not create. For communicators, this makes an already difficult role even more complex.

Most of these communicators are not sitting at the top table, setting strategy or assessing risks to the organisation. Yet they are the ones asked to articulate, justify and sometimes defend decisions they didn’t make. When organisational behaviour blurs, the burden of explanation often falls on those with the least power to challenge it.

In recent conversations with peers across sectors, there’s been a consistent theme: a sense of operating closer to the line than before. Not outright falsehoods but selective framing, omission, or pressure to “hold the line” when the full picture is uncomfortable.

So what can be done constructively?

First, organisations need to recognise that ethical communication is a strategic asset. Trust, once lost, is expensive - financially and reputationally - to rebuild. Embedding communicators earlier in decision-making, rather than at the point of message delivery, is essential but, so often in my experience, not the case despite strong arguments for doing so.

Second, professional bodies like the CIPR and the Public Relations and Communications Association can go further - not just in setting standards with high level codes of conduct with but in actively equipping and protecting their members for the many ‘grey’ areas of being a practitioner. These could include:

• Mandatory ethics CPD: regular, practical training based on real-world dilemmas
• Stronger, enforceable ethical frameworks: giving practical scenario-based guidance on issues like omission, selective disclosure, and “defensive” communications.  
• Confidential ethics helplines: giving practitioners an opportunity to test concerns and seek advice before situations escalate.  
• Public advocacy: being more visible and vocal in calling out poor corporate communication practices, reinforcing that the profession stands for something tangible.  
• Board-level campaigning: making the case - collectively - that senior communicators should have direct access to the C-suite and boards, so ethical considerations are part of decision-making, not an afterthought.  

Third, leaders - especially CEOs and boards - must set the tone. Culture flows downward. If transparency and accountability are genuinely valued at the top, communicators are far less likely to find themselves in compromised positions further down.

And finally, for communicators themselves, there remains the question of personal red lines. They are not always easy to draw - particularly in complex, high-pressure environments—but they matter. Quiet integrity, as unglamorous as it sounds, is still the profession’s strongest defence.

Programmes like Dirty Business shine a necessary light on systemic issues. But they also prompt a more subtle reflection: not just on what organisations do, but on how - and by whom - their actions are explained. The line I was once given - that you would never be asked to lie - felt clear at the time. Today, it feels much more complicated. Not because the principle has changed but because the systems around it have.

Today’s communicators are operating in a culture where the boundaries have shifted - where contesting facts, avoiding apology, and “holding the line” have become more normalised across public life. In that environment, the pressure isn’t always to say something untrue outright. It’s to blur, shape, withhold or defend in ways that edge closer to it - often without the authority to change the underlying decisions.

That’s what makes this more than a communications challenge. It’s the product of a wider system - one that increasingly asks communicators to carry the weight of decisions they didn’t make, in a culture that is less and less anchored to a shared sense of truth.

• Dirty Business is available to stream on Channel 4.

Peter Osborne is a former journalist with more than three decades of experience in corporate communications and public affairs, working at the sharp end of contested and high-risk decisions, often involving the delivery of major infrastructure projects in the nuclear and water sectors – where public scrutiny, legal challenge and issues of trust are constant features. He has also worked in the public sector, including the police and probation services, as well as for third-sector organisations. His professional background informs this blog.

Further reading

South East Water's reasons for not speaking to the media aren't good enough

The Post Office Horizon scandal and the power of the docu-drama