Media Responsibility and Change

I'd like to raise a controversial topic. If you, like me, are left confused by the debate about whether or not the BBC or Sky should post stories about the Gaza appeal then read on. Essentially the way I see it is that this is a great illustration about the degree of difficulty there is in sorting out beliefs from facts. I make no comment about the political or other ramifications of supporting the Gaza appeal. What I find interesting is that both news broadcasters believe that they report the news with impartiality. Is this really the case?
Can you ever be so objective that you only tell the facts? And whose facts are you telling? From which perspective?

'We cannot not communicate' so the saying goes. The positioning of stories in the schedule of a news programme communicates something about the impartiality, or not, of the news broadcaster. Headlines in themselves communicate a very clear message about how the broadcaster wants us to view something. Think about the emotive headlines you read on a daily basis in the newspapers. If they weren't emotive then we probably wouldn't buy the newspapers - they are emotive for that very reason, to get you to buy. News programmes have the same objective - to get you to watch. The world would be a very bland place if we were only ever logical, objective and scientifically factual at all times. Our social interactions mix objectivity and subjectivity.

So turning to other areas of impartiality - the economy. It seems like we've been heading for recession since the beginning of last year. One news programme last week said that we are on the brink of a recession and on a different channel another news programme said we had entered the recession. Both may have been right and both were reporting the news 'impartially'. However, you can see that each took a different perspective. The messages are slightly different and will inflence behaviours - particularly the financial markets and consumer spending.

The winds of change are blowing against the world's door. In our social life as well as our working life our uncertainty makes us react to events around us in a subjective way. To do something different sometimes requires some objectivity and also a realisation that facts are themselves open to perspective.

It is with this in mind that I challenge you to think about how you communicate messages in your business. Are you dressing up persausive rhetoric as factual impartiality? Or do you give credit to the current perspective? Recognising that change is both about being honest with where you are at and establishing fact from belief.