How You Can Combat Fake News and Rumors in a Crisis
WRITTEN BY NIKI JUHASZ
In the 1960s, Marvin Gaye sang about hearing news through the grapevine. I’m reminded of this song because “hearing it through the grapevine” has been the theme of these past few weeks.
Rumors are running rampant — schools will open in May, schools won’t open again in 2020, students with failing grades at the beginning of this pandemic will automatically fail — and more.
You’ve told us that it feels like. It. Never. Stops.
We get it. It’s important now, more than ever, to ensure your community has the right, up-to-date information.
(Obviously Data Driven) Ways to Build Trust
We don’t have to tell you that families and school staff have a lot going on right now. Searching for information — and wondering what they can trust — just adds to their stress.
That's why we’re sharing tips to ensure your audience sees and trusts your messaging:
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Choose your main outlet for sharing information and stick with it. When it comes to COVID-19, creating (or maintaining) a coronavirus-specific landing page is a great way to keep your audiences informed.
Let your community members know where they can find the most up-to-date information and then update that location first, and consistently. This way, your audience doesn’t have to search for updates — or wonder what’s fake or real.
Link all messaging back to that unified source of information.
Choose one main spokesperson for your district or organization. All emails, calls, letters and texts should then come “from” this person, building consistency in communications. Why? According to an assessment of 87,000 leaders (shared by the Harvard Business Review) consistency helps build trust with your audience.
Ensure all school leaders have the most up-to-date information — along with the messaging you’re using to share it. Nothing is more confusing to a parent than hearing conflicting information from a superintendent, their principal and the head of their local health department.
Create toolkits with core messaging, sample social media posts and graphics for big announcements that you can share with your school-based teams and local partnership so that everyone is singing from the same song book.
Create a separate internal news outlet for school staff and members of your organization. Regularly update this page with the most up-to-date information.
Include facts and data from experts in your messaging. According to Statista, 85 percent of Americans trust information from the CDC, 77 percent trust WHO and 70 percent trust their local government.
Remember that not all families have access to the internet. Ensure that your messaging reaches those families, too. (Psst - stay tuned for a sign-up link for our upcoming “reaching offline families” webinar in the coming weeks! We’re limiting the interactive webinar to just 250 participants, so we’ll send the sign-up link out to our email subscriber colleagues first. Sign up for our newsletter list below!)
When you share updates regularly, your community will be less likely to believe fake news and spread false rumors, since they are getting the right information from someone they trust.
