You know fake news has become a big deal when President Obama feels the need to briefly address the impact of fake news on the current partisan political climate during his final official press briefing on December 16. Facebook, a favorite platform for disseminating fake news, has also recently announced formal actions to limit the dissemination of fake news in its newsfeed.
Yesterday, I briefly talked about the reasons why people might believe in fake news. Today, I want to present five actions you can take to combat fake news:
1) Prepare, prepare, prepare
Prepare by having communication professionals on staff that are experienced at telling stories and that are empowering executive leadership to proactively tell positive stories. This may seem like a no-brainer but I am continually amazed at how many businesses/organizations dedicate little or nothing towards having communication professionals on staff, or in having a robust communications program.
I view investing in communications as the same as a company in long-term R&D. It may be years before you see a payoff in your investment but ultimately, having a robust communications department (includes experts in social media, communication planning, writers, graphic design, web, fundraising, etc.) will always pay dividends in increasing profits or achieving public policy objectives.
2) Tell powerful stories
A key aspect of any successful communication program or campaign is the ability to tell powerful stories that connect with your target audience. In general, the private sector is much better at doing this than the public or nonprofit sector. For the public and nonprofit sector, I see too many stories that are just regurgitating a bunch of statistics or talking points. You need to make every news story jump off the page.
One of my favorite people that is an expert in story telling in Andy Goodman, who runs the Goodman Center. I first met Andy years ago when I was working with nonprofits on how to establish more marine protected areas (places in the ocean or Great Lakes that have special protections). Andy blew me away with his knowledge on effective story telling. I highly recommend visiting the Goodman Center website and sign up to receive his free newsletter. (There are tons of other great online resources as well. Please share your favorites in the Comments.)
3) Tell your story using credible spokespeople
Even the best crafted story will fall on deaf ears if you use the wrong spokesperson. Again, this is where it is good to learn from the advertising world on how to carefully choose the right person to tell your story. In some cases, it might be your CEO (e.g. Steve Jobs) but other times, the story will work best when it’s told by an employee or customer. Mary Barbour with OzContent provides 11 great examples of corporate storytelling. My favorites are from Guinness and Apple. For an example of poor spokespeople, look no further than a video currently making the rounds that shows a bunch of celebrities trying to convince Republican Electoral College electors to not vote for Donald Trump. Do you think they are going to hear Debra Messing say “don’t vote for Trump” and suddenly change their minds? That’s what I thought.
4) Connect with people emotionally
In his book, I’m Right and Your an Idiot, author James Hoggan asks, “how do we create the space for higher quality public debates where passionate opposition and science shape constructive, mind-changing conversations”? Hoggan points out that “research coming from cognitive and brain science tells us if we want to be persuasive, we must appeal to people’s value and speak from a moral position.”
Some issues lend itself better than others to telling an emotional story but if you look close enough, every story has an emotional element. From the nonprofit world, Nancy Schwartz with Network for Good describes six types of stories that can spur giving. One of the types of stories she features that is often overlooked are the stories about the people that work in your business or organization. We all have amazing people we work with and they each have a story to tell. By focusing the story on them in the right way, you can easily connect emotionally with your target audiences.
5) Support public education or other dialogue forums
The last action you can take is to support public education programs or other dialogue forums. This is another one of those long-term investments but is absolutely essential for preparing the leaders of tomorrow. One of my favorite examples of how public education can make a difference comes from the world of climate change and is the story of Bob Inglis, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina.
Congressman Inglis held traditional Republican views on climate change until his children reached voting age and persuaded him to take a closer look at climate change. Inglis traveled to Antarctica – twice – and his conversations with scientists there convinced him climate change was a growing threat. I don’t know exactly what education his kids received growing up but I am confident that somewhere in their childhood was a science teacher that talked about climate change in a way that made Inglis’ children finally convince their dad to look more closely at this issue.
This is not going to be easy
Let’s be clear, getting anyone to change their mind on any particular issue is a challenge. It may seem like a lost cause but people DO change their minds. A recent prominent example is that of former white nationalist, Derek Black. Derek gradually changed his views over the course of his time spent at a liberal arts college in Florida. There are lessons from Derek’s own words about his story of transformation.
I’m not going to sugar coat it that even if you implement the five actions to address fake news, at the end of the day people have to open to hearing your story. I think the take home lesson from Derek Black’s life story is that: 1) just like Bob Inglis, he had an open mind to listening to alternative viewpoints; and 2) the most effective way to engage people is on an interpersonal level. I’m talking down in the trenches good old-fashioned outreach where you are having in-depth interactions with them, preferably on their “turf.”
As a father of two young girls dedicated to seeing that they have a vibrant future ahead of them, I’m going to keep plugging away on important issues by using these five actions in my day-to-day life. I hope you find them helpful as well.
Eco-Econ Future 