As a kid debating my parents over whatever I deemed the world’s latest
injustice, my mother would often counsel, “Saying it louder doesn’t make
you right.” Mom was clearly unfamiliar with the internet.
Trending newsfeeds today evoke unrestrained screaming contests. “Fake news”
and “alternative facts” have entered the lexicon. The concept of reality is
eroding, and it’s increasingly hard to publicly converse with civility or
depth. Our
technology is
manipulated and misused to amplify fallacious arguments and to shill agenda-driven
drivel.
In the communications business, as in life, this problem stretches far
beyond spin. The promotion of misleading or brazenly fabricated information
in the guise of news is a dangerous blight.
Just a few years ago, we’d all laugh when silly headlines from The Onion made it
into the
“real news” cycle. We’ve since progressed to a world of
PizzaGate, safe products that
aren’t, crackpots influencing government policy, international disinformation
campaigns, and an inability to discern
fact from fiction.
It’s no laughing matter. All professional communicators have a duty to help
fix this problem by standing up for truth.
This isn't something that will be sorted out in newsrooms. It extends to
what we all post on our blogs, share on social media, include in op-eds,
PowerPoints, white papers and press releases.
[RELATED: Learn how to infuse storytelling, simple language and great
writing into all your communications at the Business Writing Summit.]
Regardless of what’s going viral, or what you feel pressured to produce by
advisors or clients, ethical discourse matters. We all have to live in the
world we shape with our narratives.
Embody these attributes, and hold both internal and external communications
teams—and yourself—to these standards:
1. Be honest.
Authenticity is priceless. If your client hopes to do or be something, go
ahead and say so, but be transparent about where they are in that pursuit.
Don’t inflate or misrepresent the situation just to spice up a story,
advance a brand objective or win page views. A bent toward hyperbole is an
affront to truth and can snowball into catastrophe. (Remember
Theranos?)
Conversely, feel free to tout real value and successes. Openly share
vetted, verified data and hard-won experience. There’s nothing wrong with
staking a claim, so long as you back it up with facts.
2. Check your sources.
Pause before you cite or share “found” content online. Do the links trace
to valid data? Who are the sources? Where did referenced statistics or
images come from?
Assertions from shrieking radio hosts and
Macedonian teenagers might be entertaining to some, but it’s better to err on the side of
Gartner or Gallup or Pew. We can no longer rely on the notion that if
anything seems too weird to be true, it probably isn’t.
If you do come across something astonishing that the international press
corps has somehow overlooked, check with Snopes before you
share it.
3. Do your duty.
If you are a subject matter expert, please stand up. If you represent an
expert, nudge them into the debate.
Our world would be poorer if Carl Sagan never
eviscerated pseudoscience, Marc Andreessen never
suggested that software is eating the world, or Clayton Christensen never
asked how to measure a life’s work. We need real expertise and analysis.
In the words of Louis Pasteur, “knowledge belongs to humanity and is the
torch which illuminates the world.”
Do not cede the power of information to trolls and bots. Contribute genuine
knowledge to the conversation, and you are contributing to the cause of
truth.
Deirdre Blake is senior content manager for Sterling Communications. A version of
this article originally appeared on
Muck Rack, a service that enables you to find journalists to pitch, build media
lists, get press alerts and create coverage reports with social media
data.
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