The Dutch Van Dale dictionary defines public relations as maintaining good relationships with the outside world. In my view, those relationships rest on one thing: trust. In PR, we create trust by communicating honestly and openly. You can probably imagine why phenomena such as fake news, alternative facts and the “post-truth” era make me angry. In this blog, I will use several articles to take you through my thoughts on these terms.
Post-truth was Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year in 2016. Its popularity owes much to — you guessed it — President Trump. In this video, de Volkskrant journalist Haro Kraak discusses the idea that there is no single truth, only a matter of perspective.
A matter of perspective. No, they are not lies; they are “alternative facts”. That was how Kellyanne Conway defended inaccurate claims about the crowd at Trump’s inauguration. Someone who invents such “alternative facts” was featured in this Nieuwsuur report last weekend. His fabricated story claiming that anti-Trump protesters were paid by Hillary Clinton was also shared by Trump’s son, campaign manager and spokesperson Kellyanne Conway. Did he regret writing these stories? Not at all. He said he wanted people to question the news they read.
Is that really the way forward: encouraging people to doubt everything they read and hear in the news? Alternative facts are closely intertwined with fake news.
Fake news
Where to begin? Trump? Brexit? The shooting in an American pizza restaurant? Instead, let me start with a history lesson that has always stayed with me.
The lesson concerned The War of the Worlds, an American radio drama about an invasion from Mars. We were told that it caused widespread panic because the fictional news reports sounded so convincing. Listeners were accustomed to taking news reports as fact.
You can probably see where I am going with this anecdote: history repeats itself. Yet all the news about fake news — still following? — has made many people more cautious about accepting reports as true. Young people, on the other hand, may accept them too readily and need lessons in distinguishing fake news from reliable reporting, according to another Nieuwsuur report this week.
Could that be the solution: educate young people and hope the phenomenon gradually disappears? Honestly, I do not think it will ever go away. There will always be people who bend the truth for their own benefit.
As a PR consultant, what I can do is make sure I do not spread fake news or alternative facts on behalf of my clients. Only then can they build an honest relationship with the outside world.
Marieke
More news ›