A Panel on ‘Strengthening Trust in a World of Disinformation’

For the closing General Session on Oct. 17 at PRSA's ICON 2024 in Anaheim, Calif., PRSA CEO Linda Thomas Brooks moderated a talk on “Strengthening Trust in a World of Disinformation.”

The panel featured Brian Balbirnie, founder and CEO, Issuer Direct (Accesswire); Paul Hardart, clinical professor of marketing, NYU Stern School of Business; Michelle Egan, APR, Fellow PRSA, CCO, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company; and Faith Pinho, national political reporter, Los Angeles Times.

Here’s an excerpt from their conversation:

Linda Thomas Brooks, CEO of PRSA, moderator:

“What’s one piece of advice that you would give communicators that they can take back home to help protect or thwart against these challenges that we talked about?

And to end on a positive note, what’s one thing that comforts you about these difficult conversations that we’ve been having as we look forward?”

Paul Hardart, clinical professor of marketing, NYU Stern School of Business:

“Number one, I’d say, is to focus on your information hygiene — just like you talk about sleep hygiene. Be pretty disciplined about the sources you will believe and not believe. You can go on all these different platforms — and like Faith said, you can get the The Guardian, you can get the The New York Times, on TikTok, on Instagram — but I would be focused on sources that you believe and then source them.

And then something positive is people like Faith, and others out there, who get up every day and try to find the news and do their best to go against the tide of misinformation. And I think that is comforting.”

Faith Pinho, national political reporter, Los Angeles Times:

“When you share URLs — and this is for all of us as individuals — on social media, just check what you share. You all know this, but we have to make sure that the information we share is good, too, and that starts with the URL.

Something that comforts me — as someone on the cusp of Gen Z and millennials — is being part of Gen Z because this is the first generation that is digitally native. And I think we are much more adept at navigating the tidal wave of misinformation. We know not to click on the viruses that are going to destroy our computers. And although we are growing up in this deluge of misinformation, we are smart enough to have the tools, and develop the tools, to figure it out and help future generations find truthful sources of information.”

Brian Balbirnie, founder and CEO, Issuer Direct (Accesswire):

“I would caution you, because we live in a real-time data world, we’ll publish a story and may have our sources, but then [they’re] gone. Weeks or months later, someone’s going to come back and challenge this as mis- or disinformation. And a lot of folks can’t find the sources anymore. It’s buried in an email and stuck in an archive on your computer… Try to structure that data because you can be called on about it at any time. You have to be prepared because the point of crisis management, as we talked about earlier, is you need to have responses and you need to have the ability to prove the content. That’s important.

Misinformation and disinformation are rampant, and we talk about it every day. The comfort that I get is this: You and I and everybody here are talking about this. The more we do that, the better this will become for all of us.”

Michelle Egan, APR, Fellow PRSA, CCO, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company:

“Your homework: Go home and check your crisis communication plan and see if you have a section on mis- and disinformation because it is coming to you.

What comforts me is that we’ve had a long history of paying attention to this issue at PRSA. One of the pieces of our strategic plan is gathering and convening conversations. Last year and early this year, we met and published a guidebook on misinformation and disinformation (“Tackling Misinformation: The Communications Industry Unites”), but it included allies from across the media landscape from large agencies that are not necessarily part of PRSA — we are a convener of that information.

That is very comforting to me — that we’re all working together. And I want to encourage everybody here to take that home because you can do it in your own company, organization or neighborhood. You can do it in your Chapter. Please line up with others and get a much stronger understanding out there about mis- and disinformation — and how we can protect against it.”