Selling the truth

This month's Significance magazine includes a jarring article about fake news.  As one would expect in Significance, there is interesting empirical data in the article.  What I found most interesting was the following quote attributed to Dorothy Byrne, a British broadcast journalism leader:

"You can't just feed people a load of facts...we are social animals, we relate to other people, so we have to always have a mixture of telling people's human stories while at the same time giving context to those stories and giving the real facts." 

Just presenting and objectively supporting debunking factual evidence is not sufficient.  We need to acknowledge that just as emotional triggers are key to spreading fake news, so they need to be considered in repairing the damage.  I saw a great example of that in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.  An article, titled "Video Contradicts Kelly's Criticism of Congresswoman," sets out to debunk the fake news story promulgated by the Trump administration claiming that Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson had touted her personal efforts in getting funding for an FBI building in her district while not acknowledging the slain FBI agents for whom the building was named.  The Journal article could have stopped at the factual assertions that she had not been elected when the funding was approved and that a video of the speech she gave includes her acknowledging the agents.  But it goes on to provide emotive context, describing the Congresswoman's lifelong focus on issues affecting low-income families and her personal connection with Army Sgt. La David Johnson, the Green Beret whose passing ultimately led to her confrontation with the Trump administration.  The details on how she had known Sgt. Johnson's family for generations and that he himself had participated in a mentoring program that she founded provided context for the facts.  The emotive picture painted by the original fake news claim and the administration's name-calling "all hat, no cattle" was replaced with the image of a caring human being.  In that light, it's easier to believe the truth - that Rep. Wilson was gracious and respectful of the fallen agents and their families just as she was of Sgt. Johnson and his family.

The lesson learned here is that in debunking fake news, "factual outrage" is not enough - we need to focus on selling the truth as the more emotionally satisfying position.  As the Significance article points out, people are drawn to simple explanations and beliefs that fit with what they want to be true.  So to repair the damage of fake news, we have to not just show people that their beliefs are inconsistent with reality - we need to provide them with another, emotionally acceptable reality that is closer to the truth.