Many people will tell you it doesn’t pay to argue with the press, but you certainly won’t hear that from anyone in the field of crisis management. In part one of his three-part guest article for our Crisis Manager newsletter, crisis communications expert Rene A. Henry examines how the rise of the Internet has made it absolutely essential to have misinformation corrected or retracted.
Now, because of the Internet, more than ever before it is more important to immediately correct any incorrect information that is published or broadcast. Once misinformation is published and republished, broadcast and re-broadcast, fiction quickly becomes fact. The longer the delay, the more the error will be repeated and republished on websites, blogs and in other media. With the Internet, in only a matter of seconds the reputation of an individual or company can be destroyed worldwide with the click of a computer key.
The fact that sites like YouTube and Twitter are now viewed by many as legitimate news outlets makes it easy for anyone to expose damaging or defamatory material to millions of eyes. The old saying that a, “lie told often enough becomes the truth” holds – if you don’t demand a correction then you risk irreparable reputation damage, or worse.
JB
Jonathan Bernstein
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/