Many, perhaps even most, readers will assume the above title is directed at the political struggle being presented daily on TV over the extortion of a democratic ally, Ukraine. Using vivid and current examples of “content” obviously makes the case well, with the bottom line point being how long term, verifiable information at the personal and corporate level makes a significant difference to the public.
Taking a quick side trip to old photos as content, we’ve seen Prince Andrew and 16-year old environmental activist Greta Thunberg being worth at *least* the proverbial 1,000 words, whether they are “real” or not.
In Thunberg’s case, a child gold-miner’s picture from about 1898 that bears an uncanny facial resemblance to the activist, including a single long braid of hair, has spawned the notion she is a time traveler.
For the Prince, its a weak denial that, relative to convicted (and now deceased) sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein providing under-aged girls to prominent figures, a “sex slave’s” assertion that they were intimate must be false because of his “inability to sweat” as badly as she described. Nobody in the Royal Family thought it was a good idea to even discuss it, let alone do a TV interview that opens the door for the sensationalist UK tabloids.
Clarity and Consistency are Legitimate
Has anyone ever tried to debunk a National Geographic story, which has been published continuously since 1888? How often is the NY Times sued for libel? The answer is “not often,” because it has well-known and scrupulous standards for getting the facts right.
If your organization’s reputation is as squeaky clean about the material it presents, if or when it puts forth information that raises a question of right or wrong, it will almost always get the benefit of the doubt .
Conversely, the President’s recent unscheduled visit to Walter Reed Hospital, which was called “routine” by the White House, raised a ton of questions about his health, because eight weeks of the impeachment process – let alone E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondholm’s testimony Wednesday, about a quid pro quo of “guns for dirt” – could make the average person’s head explode.
That White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham recently claimed, “There were ‘You will fail’ notes everywhere from Obama people when Trump came into office” was a glaring lie, even it might have been seen as typical of the current administration. While its a situation she has since retracted, having even one piece of proof might have made a big difference.
To say any organization will get painted with a very broad and negative brush after there is documented proof against assertions like that is an inescapable fact. Trump’s first press secretary *never* escaped the scorn of the national press after asserting that his Inauguration crowd was “the biggest ever,” because it was demonstrably false.
Only a small percentage of Americans believe much of anything that comes out of the White House as a result of the President’s 12,000-plus documented lies or serial misinformation. The changing rationale for many administration decisions, like betraying Kurdish fighters by moving U.S. troops to allow Turkish troops to attack them, is something that will be remembered for a very, very long time.
How long would it take anyone to check the assertion by highly regarded Levine Children’s Hospital (in Charlotte), or even the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to be blasted for saying they cure 96.5% of their patients? They get praised for the quality of their efforts, not specifically their numbers.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Having recently been a blogger for a CBD oil manufacturer, and a user of products that have absolutely ‘fixed’ some physical problems, writing that it *cured* anything wasn’t allowed. There was plenty of documentation across many online resources and studies, but technically, helpful as it was to a range of ailments like anxiety, inflammation, and sleeping disorders, “cure” wasn’t a step we could state.
When it comes to corporate information, writing or otherwise projecting something that can be proven otherwise will never help.
Ask the tobacco industry how denying the link between smoking and cancer, or how major league baseball owners wound up paying a huge judgment regarding collusion in not bidding on free agents worked out. There are so many avenues to check information, doing anything but keeping to the facts is always going to be the best route.
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