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.

I Pledge Allegiance...

Last week,  I heard a segment on NPR about patriotic rituals such as saying the Pledge of Allegiance or standing for the National Anthem.  One statement by a young person was hard for me.  She said she could not recite the Pledge of Allegiance because saying that our republic has "liberty and justice for all" is false.  I get that.  And I certainly respect anyone's right to participate or not participate in saying the Pledge.  What bothers me is that "the republic, for which it stands" is an idea and that idea really does mean liberty and justice for all.  We have never had - and no real nation ever will have - perfect liberty and justice. What we pledge allegiance to is the idea that such a nation can exist.  I bet that 150+ years ago when Abraham Lincoln made his long-remembered remarks at Gettysburg, he knew well that this idea would never be perfectly realized.  He knew that what he himself had done to preserve it was not perfect.  But he really did believe in the idea.  This idea is the source of everything that has ever been good about the United States and everything that will ever be good about us, our children or our children's children.  We cannot abandon this idea because we have not lived up to it - even collectively.  Even if we see endemic and systemic injustice and prejudice, we have to see that as not who we are.  And we need our children to see that.  We don't need to make them say the Pledge or even stand when others do, but we do need them to have faith that this idea really can "long endure" and that there really can be "a new birth of freedom" in the United States.