By Stephanie York, J.D., Hennes Communications It’s worth stating over and over – social media is your organization’s most important tool to disseminate information to your stakeholders amidst a crisis. People who care most about you go to your website. They follow your Twitter feed. Many likely interact with you on your Facebook page. Because […]
by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications Hat’s off to Max Fisher of the New York Times for settling a question roiling dinner tables and family rooms across the country in this ceaseless topsy-turvy age of misinformation: How on earth can people believe the outlandish viral nonsense that persists and thrives on social media? Child sex trafficking […]
By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications The title says “schools,” but everything below is applicable to all businesses, organizations and professional service firms. Congratulations, School Leaders. You survived 2020-21 – a school year unlike any other, featuring the continuation of a public health pandemic, the most hyper-charged political atmosphere in memory and social justice issues that […]
Regular readers of this newsletter know that one of our favorite writers and consultants is Dr. Peter M. Sandman. Creator of the “Risk = Hazard + Outrage” formula for risk communication, Peter Sandman is one of the preeminent risk communication speakers and consultants in the United States today, and has also worked extensively in Europe, […]
From Michael J. O’Brien and Izzat Alsmadi, writing for The Conversation… Sorting through the vast amount of information created and shared online is challenging, even for the experts. Just talking about this ever-shifting landscape is confusing, with terms like “misinformation,” “disinformation” and “hoax” getting mixed up with buzzwords like “fake news.” Misinformation is perhaps the […]
From Aaron Krolik and Kashmir Hill writing for The New York Times… At first glance, the websites appear amateurish. They have names like BadGirlReports.date, BustedCheaters.com and WorstHomeWrecker.com. Photos are badly cropped. Grammar and spelling are afterthoughts. They are clunky and text-heavy, as if they’re intended to be read by machines, not humans. But do not […]
By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications A Pennsylvania student’s decision to express her frustration about being passed over for promotion on the cheerleading squad will mark the U.S. Supreme Court’s first review of the limits of free speech for students in the age of social media when it rules on a case heard April 28. School […]
By Denise Marie-Ordway, writing for the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School… Many Americans share fake news on social media because they’re simply not paying attention to whether the content is accurate — not necessarily because they can’t tell real from made-up news, a new study in Nature suggests. Lack of […]
By Charlotte Klein, writing for Vanity Fair… It started late one day, and you could see it kind of building on social media,” Washington Post national editor Steven Ginsberg recalled of the torrent of online abuse directed last month at Seung Min Kim. The Post reporter had been photographed showing Senator Lisa Murkowski a critical tweet sent by Neera Tanden and seeking comment, a standard journalistic practice somehow interpreted as […]
By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications The funny thing about trying to be humorous on social media is that it’s too often not funny – and can be quite damaging. Exhibit 1: On March 8, Burger King United Kingdom posted this to Twitter: “Women belong in the kitchen.” On International Women’s Day. The motivation actually was […]