There’s an old adage, “A lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is still getting its pants on.” It reminds me of countless mornings when I rushed through the house to wake my kids for school, cook grits and eggs, get dressed for work with minutes to spare―only to find one of my kids sitting on the floor, pants halfway on, reading a “Dog Man” book.
The truth doesn’t rush itself.
But the saying also makes me think about the conundrum of anyone who cares about discourse based on facts. Lies always have seemed to move faster than the truth, but never as fast as today. Social media, 24/7 cable news and now artificial intelligence-generated fake articles and videos have made it easier than ever to spread untruth. A bot can write a hundred rebuttals to this essay faster than you can read it once.
It’s tempting to solve this problem with censorship, but that solution creates new problems of its own, including a backlash against any attempt to slow down or correct misinformation. A better approach might be to help truth “get dressed faster,” so to speak. Working in newspapers and university communications for about 20 years, I’ve noticed that people who are committed to fact-based reporting, the scientific method and robust scholarship usually convey their ideas in a way that falls flat in fast-moving online circles. The good news is that there are a few definite things we can do to communicate more effectively.
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