I used to be heartened when, greater than a yr into the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Surgeon Basic Vivek Murthy took a stand publicly towards misinformation, calling it “an pressing risk to public well being.”
I couldn’t have agreed extra.
From the start of the pandemic, the main focus of my employer, a nationally ranked well being system, had turn into safeguarding public well being. And the work of our company communications staff had turned to sharing correct, well timed data and serving as an essential adjunct to under-resourced public well being businesses. Our aim throughout the deadliest pandemic in additional than 100 years was to cease the unfold and save lives.
By the point the vaccine grew to become accessible in late 2020, greater than 26,000 folks in our service space had contracted COVID and greater than 300 had died. Different elements of the nation fared a lot worse.
Quickly spreading social media messages encouraging skepticism of the vaccine’s effectiveness have been sabotaging the heroic efforts of those that developed the possibly life-saving vaccine in report time — in addition to these of our frontline caregivers, who have been exhausted after a yr preventing the pandemic and now confronted anger and resentment as they labored to rescue significantly in poor health sufferers, most of whom have been unvaccinated.
As communicators, our staff wasn’t simply preventing a pandemic, we have been waging a struggle — a struggle on misinformation.
Whereas freedom of speech permits folks to say issues which can be deceptive or just fallacious, the First Modification additionally has its restrict. You don’t yell “fireplace” in a crowded theater, for instance, with out penalties. Equally, social media should assume accountability for the knowledge being shared on its platforms as their dominance as a information supply grows.
Fortuitously, social media platforms have been proactive in growing considerate interventions to handle false and deceptive posts. As PR professionals, we should do our half by first committing to sharing solely data that’s correct and truthful, and that serves the general public curiosity. We additionally should actively advocate to eradicate data that misinforms or intentionally misleads the general public.
PRSA, because the voice of our occupation, has taken a stand on misinformation with the Voices4Everyone initiative that seeks to fight misinformation by selling media literacy, and offering schooling and thought management on the subject. Our affiliation can also be talking up on high-profile misinformation circumstances and offering clear steerage for members by publishing PRSA Moral Requirements Advisory 21, which advises that we:
- Learn and confirm the validity of sources for data earlier than sharing it.
- Educate workers to reduce the danger of spreading false data on social media or different retailers.
- Use applicable language to precisely talk, slightly than comfortable pedal, the seriousness of a state of affairs.
- Make investments time and sources to proactively determine and deal with the unfold of false data by presenting credible sources that share factual data.
Analysis exhibits that almost all of People imagine misinformation represents a severe risk to democracy and to our economic system. It will also be life-threatening, as we noticed throughout the pandemic.
Linda Staley, APR, Fellow PRSA, a member of the PRSA Board of Ethics and Skilled Requirements, is previous president of the Blue Ridge Chapter.
[Illustration credit: bakhtiarzein]
