We live in a time of ongoing raging battles between truth and disinformation.
It’s why the United Nations body – UNESCO – has felt it necessary to bring out this handbook for journalism education and training.
At such a time, your credibility is an especially vital asset whenever you’re seeking to convey a truthful message.
This applies to whether you’re seeking to spread your message through the news media – or at a face-to-face or online gathering – or both.
Remember that whenever audiences are weighing up what you’re telling them, there are two vital questions they’ll typically ask themselves:
1. Is this person speaking qualified to talk about this subject?
2. And/or has this person gathered enough proof to back up what he/she is saying?
For every discerning audience, it’s logical that any credible message bearer needs to pass both these tests.
However, the world has just witnessed a spectacular high-profile case where a particularly prominent person has sought to convey a message of massive significance on a topic in which he has zero qualifications.
He was unable to convey any credible scientific evidence to support his message – quite possibly because no such evidence exists.
As a result, the prominent person’s message has been universally rubbished by those who know far more about the subject than he does.
If you value your reputation and respect your audiences, never, never, never allow yourself to behave in front of the news media – or any audience – like this prominent person!
The prominent person’s message was about the vexed, complex and emotional medical question of the cause/s of autism – and why there has been a significant increase in its diagnosis in recent times.
The Oxford English Dictionary says “People with autism spectrum disorder can find it difficult to communicate and form relationships, and may show repeated or limited patterns of thought and behaviour.”
Before the announcement, the prominent person claimed that the “answer to autism” had been found.
In a move of profoundly bad taste, he advertised that he would be making his future announcement about autism while giving the eulogy at the memorial service for the assassinated controversial American, Charlie Kirk.
Alas when the announcement by the prominent person came, it did not come close to living up to his over-the-top claim of finding the answer to autism – in the view of a massive range of scientific critics.
The so-called “answer” to autism turned out to be that the disorder is supposedly given to unborn babies when pregnant women take the pain-killer “Acetaminophen” – known as “Tylenol” in North America and as “Paracetamol” in the United Kingdom and in many other places.
It’s fair to conclude that if the prominent person did not hold a massively important public office, the announcement – with the absence of back-up proof – would not have warranted a fraction of the world-wide publicity it received.
The prominent person is not a medical expert.
And he could not point to credible scientific evidence which supported his claims.
Unlike someone who had real credibility on his topic, the prominent person could not even pronounce the name of the key drug in question – Acetaminophen – without stumbling over it and then asking those around him whether he had said the name correctly.
The prominent person was, of course, the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
It was his supremely powerful position – not his qualifications and evidence – that accounted for the massive media airtime and space that his claims were given, and the massive critical scrutiny that they received.
You can check out how the announcement was covered by Good Morning America – which took the precaution of listing 10 major medical organisations that disagreed with the president – in the following video report:
One of the most damaging criticisms of President Trump’s announcement from the scientific community relates to his apparent non-understanding of the crucial difference between a “correlation” between two things and a “causation” between those two things.
As one scientist explained, you can observe an accurate “correlation” between people eating ice cream on hot days and them also getting sunburn.
But the while ice-cream eating commonly occurs on the same sunny days as the arrival of sunburned skin on ice-cream eaters, it does not mean that the sunburn is “caused” by the ice-cream.
So it would be a very basic unscientific mistake to deduce that licking ice-cream causes sunburn!
Scientists condemning the Trump announcement make a parallel point that just because a mother may have taken Paracetamol during pregnancy does not mean that this was the cause if their child has autism.
The BBC Newsnight programme ran interviews with scientifically qualified people who are highly critical of President Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about autism.
You can watch them here:
It is my duty in media and presentation training sessions to do my best to ensure that my clients always come across with maximum credibility in public.
In order to seek to achieve this, I need to ensure they are subjected to rigorous questioning before they go before their audiences and make bold proclamations.
If they were ever to mistakenly mix up the difference between correlation and causation, this would be highlighted by the application of so-called ‘blow-torch-on-the-belly’ questions in mock interviews during training sessions.
The clients’ answers would be rigorously reviewed – and decisions made about how they should proceed.
In extreme cases, decisions might be made about whether they should proceed before the audience at all.
The result is that they would not go before the media or an audience without being trained in the art of coming across with deserved credibility.
So participants learn the importance of the need to credibly back up what they assert.
Alas this process clearly does not happen successfully in the Trump-led White House – possibly because those working for the president are too scared of his fierce temper or too keen to massage his oversized ego.
So President Trump routinely goes before vital audiences of world-wide television viewers – and even the United Nations General Assembly – saying untrue and unproven things in public which could have been ironed out in private beforehand.
Never let yourself or your team fall into this trap.
Media training sessions and presentation skills sessions are designed to make sure your credibility is thoroughly tested in private to ensure that you’re well-placed for when it’s tested in public.
Information about sessions in media interview response training is at:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/media-master-classes/
The video demonstrating how training to give great answers to tough questions works in front of an audience is here:
Information about sessions in Presenting With Confidence, Impact & Pizzazz is here:
https://www.michaeldoddcommunications.com/presenting-with-confidence-impact-and-pizzazz/
And there’s good October news for those who need to know the golden formulae for giving great answers to tough questions – and who can make it to the City of London – the UK’s commercial capital.
On Thursday 9 October, Great Answers To Tough Questions In The Business World is the topic of the featured speaker at the Executives Association of Great Britain – the EAGB.
The EAGB has been running events for business leaders since that not-so-great financial year of 1929.
But whatever their financial challenges, western economies have come a long way since then!
To find out more about getting tickets for the EAGB event – and to discover more about its 9 October featured speaker – visit:
It will be splendid to see readers of this column there.