how to combat fake news

Dave Collett and Danny Olson (l-r) of Weber Shandwick share how to combat fake news at a Minnesota PRSA event.

 

To be persuasive we must be believable. To be believable we must be credible. To be credible we must be truthful. – Edward R. Murrow, 1963

Fake news has infiltrated our culture faster than a breaking story, and according to Weber Shandwick experts speaking at a recent Minnesota PRSA event, the traditional media is partly to blame.

Dave Collett, executive vice president and general manager of Weber Shandwick, and Danny Olson, the firm’s senior vice president of platform strategy, said that revenue problems, the need for speed and stretched reporters were factors.

But social media platforms are important contributors to the rise of fake news as well.

Today, 32 percent of Americans access news via smartphone in the bathroom or on the toilet, and 46 percent use their smartphones for news in bed.

“With a dependence on fewer platforms, we’re increasingly getting our news from social,” said Olson. “Social media platforms are trying to keep you on the platform as long as possible. Facebook has tried to abdicate responsibility (for fake news) as much as possible.”

Fake news isn’t going away any time soon, and technology is contributing to its pervasiveness.

Collett and Olson showed a video of Adobe demonstrating a new tool that, after 20 minutes of listening to you, can make you say anything.

Faked videos are a real concern as well. Another video shown demonstrated how an AI took 14 hours of Barack Obama footage and created a video of manufactured speech.

So what can companies do? Collett offered five tips for handling fake news:

  1. Don’t lie (and don’t work with liars)
  2. Be prepared for fake news to strike your organization
  3. Identify and call out fake news and lies, but do so calmly
  4. Address reporting mistakes and inaccuracies (politely and professionally)
  5. Leverage your best asset – your employees – to help protect your brand

We also need to take action by putting money behind the institutions we believe in.

“Local news will die if you don’t have a subscription to the Star Tribune,” said Olson. “We have gone from the ‘boycott’ phase to the ‘buycott’ phase.”

According to Collett, there is hope. “I do think that we’re going to come out the other side better.”