At the Speed of Trust: Two Executive Perspectives on Ethics in Modern Communications
By John DuVal
Appalachian State University
COM3430-301
Dr. Thomas Mueller
April 26, 2026At the Speed of Trust: Two Executive Perspectives on Ethics in Modern Communications
Professional communication rarely happens in calm conditions. It happens where speed is rewarded, persuasion is expected, and technology raises the stakes for how quickly messages spread and how strongly they shape audience perception. Patricia Hopkins is the Corporate V.P. of Marketing and Creative at SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology), where she has led global marketing strategy, corporate communications, and creative oversight since 2009 (Center for Leadership and Ethics, n.d.). SMT operates in live sports, where data, broadcast storytelling, and event support converge under public scrutiny (SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology), n.d.). She has also contributed to mentoring spaces within the sports industry, reinforcing her commitment to developing the next generation of leaders (Durham Sports Commission, n.d.; WISE Greater Raleigh, 2023). Arlene O’Reilly is the founder of Mind’s Eye Communications, a full-service, woman-owned Nantucket-based advertising agency she has led since January 2000 (O’Reilly, n.d.). Mind’s Eye Communications works across brand strategy, multimedia storytelling, immersive media, interactive services, targeted communication, and analytics in client work shaped by fast-moving technology and audience measurement (Mind’s Eye Communications, n.d.). Their roles differ, but both work in professional settings where messages move quickly, metrics shape interpretation, and technology can strengthen communication while also destabilizing ethical judgment.
In separate interviews conducted on April 22, 2026, Hopkins (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026) and O’Reilly (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026) described ethics as rules that govern daily practice. Although they work in different sectors of the communications industry, both returned to the same basic concern: once context disappears and technology accelerates communication faster than judgment can keep up, trust begins to erode across representation, public messaging, and client relationships.
That is what makes their perspectives valuable in a professional ethics course. Hopkins works in live sports communication, where timing, accuracy, and trust are inseparable. O’Reilly works in a more flexible communications setting shaped by privacy, attribution, targeting, and client trust. These conversations trace those pressures across truth, automation, representation, activism, client expectations, and dignity under pressure.
The first ethical fault line in both conversations was truth. Information can be technically accurate and still create a misleading impression when it is stripped of context. That problem sits close to postmodern concerns about perception overpowering verification and partial truth beginning to feel complete (Hicks, 2014, pp. 6, 15–16). Hopkins described truth as something that has to be viewed in its entirety and tested to see whether it is actually factual. She said she uses “multiple sources” because even a correct statistic or video clip can distort reality if it only captures part of the story. She compared it to tuning into a hockey fight in the middle and not knowing who instigated it. She argued that you do not know “the whole truth,” so you cannot fairly judge what happened (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026). At the Speed of Trust: Two Executive Perspectives on Ethics in Modern Communications
O’Reilly reached a similar conclusion through privacy and data collection. She rejected older performance language in favor of a more ‘human-centric’ and ‘authentic’ model, then made clear that if a client asked her to extract personal data in ways that violated privacy law, her answer would be, “I’m sorry, I can’t do that because it’s illegal in select states within the US and the EU, both areas of the world that I do business with.” (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). Their views reject the idea that truth is whatever can be displayed, measured, or made persuasive in the moment. Truth requires context, judgment, and restraint, especially when technology can generate persuasive output faster than people can verify it.
Hopkins and O’Reilly did not reject AI outright. They treated it as useful only when human judgment retains final authority, because the ethical risk begins when speed outruns accuracy, voice, and authorship. Hopkins put the problem in brand terms. She tells her team to use AI “as an organizational tool” and “a thought starter,” but her standard is simple: “if it doesn’t sound like us SMT . . . we don’t use it” (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026).
O’Reilly’s perspective is also shaped by Cornell University’s AI Law and Policy credential (eCornell, 2026). She acknowledged that many creatives fear job loss and displaced labor, and she did not dismiss those concerns (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). Even so, she still sees practical uses for AI in early-stage design work, such as helping “set the tone” or fast-track mockups, as long as the work is then finished offline with the human creator retaining authorship (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). She was especially wary of free platforms, warning that anything placed into them can disappear into “large learning machines (LLM)” (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). In both accounts, AI becomes ethically unstable when convenience starts to replace brand judgment, authorship, oversight, and authentic representation.
When it came to representation, neither woman treated diversity as cosmetic. Both pushed back against tokenism, but they described authenticity from different angles. The risk of assimilation, in this context, shows up when visible difference is reduced to a surface cue while lived context drops out. Hopkins answered directly that “diversity is important,” but “it cannot feel forced,” and she rejected hiring someone “on that alone” (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026). At SMT, she said hiring and collaboration have long centered on teamwork, pressure, sports knowledge, and shared responsibility. For Hopkins, tokenism begins when identity becomes a shortcut rather than part of a real working culture.
O’Reilly approached the issue through audience design and emotional connection. She said she looks for “the common denominators for humankind,” pointing to nature, children, aging, and shared vulnerability (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). She also said she would not be “blatant about black, white, whatever color your skin is,” and that those elements could be “lace[d] through in a very subliminal way” (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). Her point was not to erase difference, but to avoid reducing At the Speed of Trust: Two Executive Perspectives on Ethics in Modern Communications
people to categories and to build connection through shared human stakes. For her, authenticity comes from work that feels lived and emotionally grounded rather than staged. Their views suggest the same standard that ethical representation has to feel earned and human enough to build trust, not simply signal difference.
If audiences can sense when representation is staged, they can also sense when activism is performative. Hopkins and O’Reilly drew a sharp line between authentic public alignment and performance. What concerned them was whether an organization had earned the right to speak. Hopkins approached that question through fit and credibility. She said there “has to be a link” between the advertiser, the event, and the audience experience (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026). She pointed to Super Bowl advertising as a useful example: even brands with no natural relationship to football still try to build some connection to the football environment because audiences feel the disconnect when it is not a natural fit. Her bluntest line made the ethical point more clearly than any formal rule could: “People know when they’re being fed BS, and they know when they’re not. Again, it’s a feeling they get” (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026). She also warned that once credibility is lost, “it’s hard to get people back” (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026).
O’Reilly illustrated the same problem through a pro bono campaign tied to a nursing home on Nantucket. Rather than leaning on slogans or panic, she and her associates chose messengers who already had “trust established” in the year-round community and asked them to “tell their story, not an opinion” (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). She described the public tone as “patient and kind,” grounded in facts and in showing people the resources where those facts came from (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). By that standard, activism becomes credible only when it is earned.
Credibility lives in the quieter promises organizations make about what a client is actually buying. For both executives, pricing ethics was less about the invoice than about the scope behind it. Hopkins put the problem plainly: “With pricing . . . it’s in the scoping side of it. When you scope it, you scope it for exactly what it is” (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026). Clients often see visible labor, but not the larger structure of equipment, travel, management, and support behind technically complex work. In her view, ethical pricing begins with clarity about what the work actually requires before expectations harden into frustration.
O’Reilly described a related problem from the agency side. Contracts may set the initial price, but the real friction often comes later, when clients assume that extra revisions, deliverables, or expanded service are already included. As she put it, “the misunderstandings can definitely happen way past the price point” (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). She also framed pricing as a question of restraint in how agencies treat vulnerable or strained clients, saying, “you can’t be a vampire” (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). In both views, the work has to be defined clearly before expectations turn into mistrust. At the Speed of Trust: Two Executive Perspectives on Ethics in Modern Communications
When those expectations fray and the pressure becomes personal, dignity becomes visible in how people lead, recover, and treat others under strain. Hopkins defined it directly: “Dignity in leadership is doing the right thing even when no one’s watching” (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026). She translated that into fairness, kindness, listening, respect, and communication. At SMT, where deadlines are tight and mistakes can become visible fast, her response is not anger or humiliation. “It’s okay to make a mistake,” she said, emphasizing that “it’s how you recover from it” (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026).
O’Reilly located dignity in accountability. In one case, a nonprofit client’s Instagram growth was contaminated by bot followers. Rather than distance herself from the problem, she said, “I had to take it on the chin” (A. O’Reilly, personal communication, April 22, 2026). She kept working the issue even when it was tedious and frustrating. For Hopkins, dignity means respectful leadership. For O’Reilly, it means accountable client work.
Patricia Hopkins and Arlene O’Reilly do not describe ethics as a decorative layer placed on top of communications work after strategy is finished. They describe it as the operating structure underneath the work itself. Their industries are different, but the pattern is consistent. Both reject the fantasy that modern communications can be reduced to speed, output, or optimization alone. They insist that truth is more than a clean number, technology is useful only when it remains governed by human judgment, and dignity becomes visible when pressure begins to test a person’s real priorities.
What emerges from speaking with Hopkins and O’Reilly is that truth needs context. Hopkins repeatedly returned to the danger of partial truth, misleading impressions, and information that looks factual but does not show the whole picture. O’Reilly reached the same point from a different angle through privacy, analytics, and data collection. For both women, truth is not whatever can be shown quickly or measured neatly. It has to be researched, framed responsibly, and kept within ethical boundaries before it becomes public communication. That matters in a media culture where speed often rewards confidence more easily than reflection.
Technology also demands governance. Neither executive sounded anti-innovation. Hopkins uses AI, and O’Reilly is actively studying its legal and strategic implications. But both reject passive faith in automated systems. Hopkins warns that AI can generate content without enough context. O’Reilly is willing to test automation only when she can define limits, control the message, and check the result. If a human cannot explain, verify, and stand behind the outcome, then the workflow is moving too fast for ethical communication. Automation is not the enemy. Uncritical dependence is.
The same pressure runs through representation, activism, and pricing. Trust weakens when identity is flattened into signal, values are performed without proof, or scope drifts beyond what was actually promised. That is why representation has to feel earned rather than forced, why values-based messaging has to be supported by action, and why scope has to be clarified before expectations begin to drift. These are not separate concerns. They are different At the Speed of Trust: Two Executive Perspectives on Ethics in Modern Communications expressions of the same ethical problem, which is what happens when appearance moves faster than accountability.
Dignity may be the clearest test of all. Hopkins describes leadership as fairness, communication, and steady correction when someone makes a mistake. O’Reilly describes dignity through boundaries, restraint, and the refusal to exploit clients or hide from responsibility when things go wrong. In both cases, ethics is not passive niceness. It is the willingness to absorb difficulty without becoming evasive, careless, or predatory. That is what makes their perspectives useful beyond the assignment itself. They turn ethics from an abstract classroom topic into conduct.
The practical code that emerges is concrete. Verify before claiming. Define what a metric can actually prove. Keep human checkpoints in AI-assisted work. Make representation feel earned rather than forced. Refuse values-based messaging that has not been supported by action. Clarify scope before expectations drift. Correct problems directly instead of protecting ego first. Those are not vague ideals. They are working habits that protect trust in real time, inside real organizations, with real consequences for audiences and clients.
Modern communications will keep changing. Tools will keep improving. Audiences will keep becoming easier to target and harder to understand. But the central ethical question will remain human. Hopkins says it most clearly when she says, “Dignity in leadership is doing the right thing even when no one’s watching” (P. Hopkins, personal communication, April 22, 2026). At the Speed of Trust: Two Executive Perspectives on Ethics in Modern Communications