Today, audiences are overloaded with content and have become more skeptical and fatigued. As communicators, we face constant pressure to earn attention in this environment.

Tight timelines and delivery demands have led the PR industry to adopt practices that can undermine the people and organizations they aim to support. While these actions are often driven by necessity, rather than intent, understanding the why doesn’t justify their impact.

At 50th Parallel, we prioritize listening, intentional learning, meaningful collaboration, taking real action and building long-lasting relationships. This approach requires us to look beyond what is expedient and focus on what is responsible and sustainable over time.

We believe that Conscious PR is a sustained, accountable practice, rooted in deep listening and a broad-spectrum perspective. By openly sharing what we’ve learned along the way, we can make lasting change, together.

5 PR PRACTICES TO EVOLVE

To bring greater clarity to our work, we are naming five PR practices we are encouraging an evolution from in 2026.

When attention becomes the primary goal, substance is often lost. Sensationalist storytelling focuses on reactions rather than genuine understanding, relying on exaggeration instead of clarity and truth. This approach may drive short-term visibility, but it weakens credibility and ignores complex realities.

Examples:

1. Using shock-based headlines that distort reality

2. Framing complex, ongoing issues as crises for the sake of urgency

3. Using pain as a hook rather than honouring resilience and agency

This is why we instead honour the truth.

Honouring the truth means resisting the urge to simplify what deserves care. We approach storytelling with patience, context and integrity, ensuring that nuance is not sacrificed for reach. Our work prioritizes accuracy and lived reality over optics, even when the full story is slower or more complex to tell.

Stories become exploitative when treated as resources rather than experiences to be respected. This approach sidelines the voices at the centre of the message and turns what should be collaboration into extraction. Thoughtful collaboration must prioritize consent and shared agency, which extraction cannot achieve.

Examples:

1. Ignoring the people at the centre of the message

2. Speaking for others, rather than letting them share their voice

3. Filtering or rewriting first-person stories to fit brand voice

This is why we instead centre storytellers.

We uplift storytellers by providing the tools and space they need to raise their voices. Our role is not to rewrite lived experiences or make them comfortable for others, but to support storytellers in commanding equity and presence in the world. We walk alongside our partners, not ahead of them.

When trust is replaced by leverage, relationships become fragile and conditional. Transactional thinking reduces people to outcomes and exchanges when they should be built around reciprocity and mutual respect. When our connections lack this foundation, real partnerships can’t thrive.

Examples:

1. Treating journalists and media as tools

2. Seeing clients as revenue generators, not partnerships

3. Short-term wins over long-term relationships

This is why we instead nurture long-lasting relationships.

Every client, partner and connection we form is rooted in reciprocity and shared understanding. We stand beside those who dare to do good because lasting change can only be made together. Community is how we grow, support others and create the world we want to live in.

While there is a natural desire to show support quickly, visibility alone doesn’t equate commitment. Performative allyship occurs when words outpace action or engagement is limited to campaign needs. Real impact comes from consistent effort and true internal change.

Examples:

1. Using activist language without taking activist risks

2. Entering movements only when they benefit a campaign

3. Issuing statements without changing practices

This is why we instead stand for what we believe.

We lead with courage, not caution. As communicators, we are responsible for speaking up and using our platforms for good. By staying true to this, our work continues to empower not only our clients but the communities and systems they are part of. When done thoughtfully and intentionally, it brings people together.

Treating culture as an aesthetic or asset creates long-lasting harm. Culture is a living, complex system of identity and meaning. When nuance and context are ignored, messaging can misrepresent or oversimplify identities. Respectful engagement must prioritize consent, collaboration and understanding to honour those at the heart of it.

Examples:

1. Reducing identities to singular or stereotyped narratives

2. Using cultural language, symbols or stories without consent and collaboration

3. Messaging that erases complexity for marketability

This is why we instead meet people where they are.

We take the time to understand who we are working with, how they want to be engaged and what feels safe to them. This approach prioritizes informed consent and collaboration at every stage, ensuring we are flexible and responsive to each person’s unique needs and ways of doing. By showing up with humility and by listening first, we build trust and support projects that are empowering and true to the people at its centre.

If this approach resonates with you or if you are looking for support, we would love to connect with you. To share your story or learn more about what we do at 50th Parallel, visit our contact page below.