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Trust Me I'm a Scientist: Communicating in Uncertainty · The SHEA Podcast

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to our new three-part podcast series, Communication in the Age of Fake News, brought to you by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, promoting the prevention of healthcare-associated infections and antibiotic resistance, and seeking to advance the field of healthcare epidemiology and antibiotic stewardship.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: This series will focus on how to gain and maintain public trust while messaging throughout a changing health crisis, describing the impact of social media on public perception of health information and vaccine uptake, and how to communicate effectively with groups of people for whom mainstream communication may not be effective.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am Dr.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jennifer Hanrahan, infectious disease specialist at the University of Toledo, and I will serve as your moderator.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Discussion on the podcast does not reflect Che's perspective, but facilitates communication of multiple perspectives and experiences on a topic that is becoming more important than ever.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Shay is excited to launch the first episode of the podcast series, which is titled, Trust Me, I'm a scientist, communicating in uncertainty.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're very fortunate to have Eileen Corey, experienced communications counsel and consultant, join us today.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: She has nearly 30 years of experience as a senior leader, trusted advisor, and consultant to CEOs and executive teams in the fields of academia and healthcare in for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: She specializes in reputation management and crisis preparedness and response.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: She also utilizes her deep background in journalism to create innovative approaches to media relations and build trusting relationships with media and the public.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us today.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're happy to have you on the podcast.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's wonderful to be here.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's wonderful to join my old Shay friends.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's always been a pleasure to help out the folks who are dedicated to public health.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know our listeners are ready to hear what you have to say.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: We look forward to an exciting and informative conversation.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, Eileen, first, I know our listeners would appreciate hearing about your background, especially as it pertains to communication in the healthcare field.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you tell us a little bit about your experiences?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think what's most relevant for this conversation is knowing that I spent nearly 20 years as a reporter in radio, print, and television.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the last oh, 10 years or so of my career was spent as a medical reporter for the NBC station in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Great healthcare in Cleveland and always a challenge to tell everybody's story in a balanced way.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: As a reporter, you tend to lead a lot of public health campaigns.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're the face of everything from colon cancer screening, as I was for a full month, to flu prevention with vaccines.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: After I left NBC, I created my own medical communications consulting firm for a couple of years and then went into organizational communications, leading media relations and communications for some major healthcare facilities and centers in Cleveland.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And frankly, I found that I performed very well in crises and decided when I went out on my own that I was going to focus on crisis management, not only in healthcare, but helping out healthcare and then bridging into academia and other areas.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: As healthcare professionals, we have to be really careful with how we frame our messaging and how to choose words.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Can you provide us with some of the best practices on how to do this, not only when we're speaking to patients, but also in a public setting?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Dr.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Henry, and this might surprise people who are in the healthcare field, but I think you should be speaking publicly in the same way that you might speak with patients or with family members whom you're trying to educate.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, you provide the truth, you are as clear as possible, you explain how numbers and data are relevant to that particular individual or that audience, and you express compassion and you be human.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: The big difference is that when you're speaking with an individual, a family member, a patient, you can read their response.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can't really read the response of a broader audience if you're on radio or television.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to anticipate it.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think therefore the principles are the same.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of research into what we in the industry call risk communications, what works and what doesn't work.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the bottom line is that research tells us you must tell the truth.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: People want to hear the truth.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: They don't want things to be sugarcoated.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're going to err on the side of alarming them with the truth, then you should do so.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: The research tells us that if you try to be overly reassuring, that that fails and you lose trust and it creates more stress for them down the road.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: And another important point here, and I don't want to ramble, but I want to get out some information that's useful.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: People need to be given the do's and the don'ts, more of the do's than the don'ts.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, in the same way as kids, we had lists.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: We like to respond to lists or be told what to do.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: In a crisis situation or a concern like a pandemic, you really need to give people a list of pointers.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: You have to tell them how to protect themselves.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And research shows, again, that the do's outweigh the don'ts in terms of what people want to hear.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: They want something positive, something they can do to protect themselves.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I often tell people that I media train that they need to speak in headlines and in subheads.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: You need to go into any kind of conversation publicly within your mind.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want that takeaway to be?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Even feed the reporter a headline or a subhead.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Visualize what you want that to be and make that part of your script.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Never go into an interview, for example, unprepared.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Always come out with two or three key messages that you want to see that reporter take away.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also important to repeat yourself.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to bore yourself.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure in so many of the interviews that you've done, Dr.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hanrahan, you find yourself repeating yourself and it's like, oh my God, I've said this a billion times.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: But as one academic president said to me, good communications is like a parade.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you're part of the parade, you're playing the same music over and over and over again because you're seeing different people along the way.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: That is good communications.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Repeat, repeat, repeat.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally, try to find a mantra, a phrase, something that even though you're going to say it over and over again, it's going to resonate with people.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: For example, I like these days, don't play politics with your personal health.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or my personal health comes before politics to make it a more positive phrase.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Those are really important messages.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things that has been really difficult with COVID is that our messaging has been changing.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And especially at the beginning, it was changing really frequently, not so much anymore, but still there was this perception that, you know, oh, now you're telling me something different.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so how do we communicate effectively, especially when there is a lot of change going on, without, you know, eroding trust or making people feel like we're not telling them the truth?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: How can we present it that, you know, this is a changing situation and we're going to be updating you?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to see every public health professional who's doing some sort of a public speaking engagement or talking to the media, begin either every answer or at least every presentation with, here's what we know so far.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what we know so far.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because you get yourself out of trouble when things change at that point, because you can always go back to say, that's what we knew at the time.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Transparency builds trust.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of health professionals feel like if they admit uncertainty, that weakens their position.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: It actually doesn't.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: It builds trust in the listener.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the most important thing at this point.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I also think it's very effective to make it personal.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you should say things like, here's what I'm doing based on the science as we understand it right now.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how I'm talking to my parents, here's how I'm talking to my spouse, here's how I'm talking to my kids.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Very often, when I was a medical reporter, I would say to a doctor, and they often hated this during interviews, I would say to a doctor, Well, what would you tell me if I was your mother?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: It puts them on the spot, but at the same time, it makes it personal, and people are more likely to listen to them as an authority, as a trusted authority, when it is more personal.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's an example that came up recently, Dr.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hanrahan, that I wanted to make sure we explore.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Very recently, there was some announcement about myocarditis, right, as a potential side effect to the vaccine.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to see someone say an answer like, okay, here's what we know so far.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then don't give me complicated numbers, which by the way, if you go back and you read the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post stories about the myocarditis, they tell you specifics about risk factors with vaccination or without vaccination in people between the age of 20 and 40 or women over 50 or whatever.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: You need to simplify enough to be able to say the risk of myocarditis in unvaccinated people who get COVID is, and I'm making up the number here, 10 times more than the risk of myocarditis when you get a vaccine.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Something that's simple and gives me a takeaway that I can use and I can repeat to others.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's really great advice.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think it it needs to be accessible information, needs to be something that people don't have to spend too much time trying to sort out what did that person just say, right?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Or read the article four times.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: I have to tell you, I read those articles four times and I'm still confused as to what the numbers are telling me because I'm not a statistician.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Epidemiologists live in numbers.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: I get that.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: But public health people need to speak in uh visual takeaways, even though you're using words.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let people remember what you're saying.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Ten times larger is a lot easier than one in 10 versus one in a hundred, something like that.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So basically keep it simple.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, in that same vein, how do we communicate uncertainty?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a lot of stuff we don't know.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: I get a lot of questions, when is this going to end?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen in the fall?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those kinds of questions.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: How do we communicate when we don't know the answers?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you go in in a positive way.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: The great thing about science is that we're learning something every day.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: The great thing about science, and by the way, it can drive you crazy.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: I understand that, is that knowledge changes over time.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: But, and you can personalize it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I got into science because I wanted to uncover answers.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the process of discovery takes time, but here's what we know right now.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to make it positive versus sort of apologizing for the fact that data changes over time.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: You want to make it positive and sort of an exciting energy to what you do, even though you probably have no energy these days after all of what everybody's been through.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: You want to acknowledge up front that there's a lot of misleading statements out there, some of it from the scientific community, some of it from people who have a particular agenda.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, you really want to have people question where they're getting their information from.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've heard a lot about people looking to their personal physician or their church or a synagogue leader or their civic leader for information because that's whom they trust.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that you have an advantage as a physician or someone in public health, as a nurse.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Being a health professional, you can cut through the clutter.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what you say to people.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's my job to do the research, to gather the data, and to cut through the clutter because I want to help you live a better life.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: You also really want to sympathize and be human and acknowledge that I love this phrase.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you've heard it.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uncertainty is the greatest form of stress.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: We are living in uncertain times.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: But the way to deal with that stress as a medical professional, a health professional is to read through the science and make sense of the data and then apply it to your own personal behaviors.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Reminder, you live in this same time of uncertainty.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're talking to people, it's okay to say, here's what I can tell you so far, and here's how I'm adapting my own personal health to the data and the science as I understand it thus far.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then ask yourself a sensible question.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen this asked in the media.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of talk at some point about concern over flu and COVID during flu season, but we didn't see much flu, and I haven't heard anybody talk about it, by the way.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't seen a lot of people get sick.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I lived in a bubble with my family for a very long period of time.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And even though we had little children in that bubble, I didn't get a cold, I didn't get any ear infections, I didn't get respiratory viruses.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Ask people during the time when you were in your home and in your bubble and wearing masks and really washing your hands a lot, hey, were you sick?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Most people will say, no, they weren't sick.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's their own personal evidence that viruses don't get into your body if you're taking these sorts of public health precautions.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: We need to remind people of that as we go forward and emerge from this pandemic.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: If I choose to wear a mask, if I choose to sanitize my grocery cart, that's because I've provided myself personal evidence that I was healthier during this whole period of time.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think those are good reminders, you know, for how to talk to people about some of what's gone on.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the other problems is we sometimes make mistakes.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes we say something and then we're like, oh no, I wish I hadn't said that.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, that has happened to me occasionally during the last year and a half.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so what do you do?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: What's your best advice for how to handle if you said something that was erroneous or if you said something you just wish you hadn't said?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: What how do you handle that situation?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, there are two answers to the question because one is more immediate.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're in a situation like this where we're in a live interview type of format or you're with the media or whatever, if you actually catch yourself saying something that you want to correct, the most important thing you can do is stop at that moment and say, you know, I want to make sure I clarify what I just said.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think it might have been confusing, or perhaps it might have been confusing.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that you're taking ownership of wanting to clarify or correct the record.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really important.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: If it's in the aftermath, you know, and you think about it or you heard yourself, or in fact you misinterpreted the data, I think it's always proper to correct.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: A colleague of mine says you should practice the three Fs and you can produce an F as you want it.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: But what he meant was when you foul up, you should fess up and then fix up.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you foul up, fess up and then fix up.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is very important to admit making a mistake or misinterpreting data or misspeaking, because that's what builds trust.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what's the old phrase?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: To err is to be human.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Again, when the rule of thumb is show your humanity, be transparent, it's okay to admit that you're fallible and people are more likely to trust you because of it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think we see from time and again in crisis communications that leaders get themselves in trouble because of hubris.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they're actually disturbingly, perhaps, for the field of public health, has been some material written about public health professionals take for granted that they should be trusted because they're in it to improve public health.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I think like anything in this world that we live in now, you have to earn trust.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: You just don't get it by being.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that brings us to our next question, which I think is really the hardest one of all, which is that everything has become politics during this last several years.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we see politics intertwined with the scientific messages, which can hurt our ability to create and maintain trust with patients and with the public.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do we stay away from politics and just focus on the science?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do we balance our conversations to steer patients away from politics?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: So there are a few answers to that question.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: The most important to remember, particularly when you're in a situation where you're communicating publicly or with the media, you don't actually have to answer every direct question you're asked.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't like the question, answer the question you want to have been asked.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this is in what we in this industry call pivot language.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you hear politicians do this all the time.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: You hear them say something like, Well, I'm not the best person to address that, but here's what I can tell you.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can say, you know, the most important thing for people to understand is, and therefore you're sort of ignoring the question.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes reporters just move on.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: They don't go back and say, but that's not the question I asked you.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: They just move on, particularly if the information you're providing them is important and framed as important.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what you really need to understand here is that what we're learning about social media these days, what we're learning about the misinformation out there is that people grab onto it because they really want to feel part of a movement.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: They want to feel part of a group.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're feeling alone and isolated anyway.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if they're feeding off an energy of a group, they tend to believe that group.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of important for public health professionals, for academic medical centers, for community health agencies to create groups.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why not create your own Facebook page for a public health entity or a public health leader?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Allow people to be part of the process and to identify with each other.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Try to explain again how you make decisions to protect yourself and your family.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you can say things like, you know, I try to make sure that politics doesn't enter into a decision about personal health.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Ask people to question the agenda of their political leaders.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're asked that all the time, right?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: What's that person's agenda to give you that kind of information?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Be as direct as you can without necessarily being on the attack.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I would align yourself with influencers in your town.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: For example, a lot of the research shows us that above and beyond reporters, above and beyond even doctors sometimes is a corporate leader.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Your boss at a large company is often more trusted than anybody else in town.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say there's a big corporation in your city, align yourself with that leadership in order to help them educate their employees.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Then you become a trusted counsel to somebody who is trusted right away.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Understand who the influencers are in your town.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's a top athlete, maybe it is a TV anchor, maybe it's your hospital CEO.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way you build community by identifying and aligning yourself with a trusted authority.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally, use that group to build a social media army.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Are the employees of your organization savvy with social media?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Get them to share the information that you are providing, whether it's through a blog, through your own Facebook page, et cetera, et cetera.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Build your own army of social media advocates and make the science relevant and understandable and irrefutable.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm hearing a lot these days, thank goodness, is what I plugged into a few days ago.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: 99% of the deaths from the virus now last month are in people who are not vaccinated.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: 99% of the people who died in the month of June were not vaccinated.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's all you have to say.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: What advice do you have for people who are interested in communicating to the public, but maybe are afraid or don't know how to enter this space?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: What would you tell them?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I should turn the question back on you because I know that Dr.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hanrahan, you speak publicly and in the media a lot.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you probably should answer this question.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: But what I will say is communications for public health is really a form of teaching.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're passionate about helping people live better lives by providing them the information they need to do so, you should consider becoming a spokesperson for your hospital, your public health authority, your academic medical center.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: You should consider being a subject matter expert for media.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's a colleague who's quoted as saying that you should use peacetime wisely, meaning don't wait for a crisis to build trust.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Build trust now.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're coming out of, hopefully, this period of pandemic.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now's the time to build trust with the media and to establish yourself as a subject matter expert.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: As we go into the fall, there are going to be more questions.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: As we go into flu season, there's going to be more questions.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: People need to turn to Dr.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Hanrahan or in their community, nurse so-and-so, in order to be able to provide advice in small soundbite nuggets.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is really about teaming up with influencers in your community.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Know which media in your community is the most trusted.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Frankly, in this world of fractured media, it's very hard to find the number one place where people go for information.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also important that you try.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: That really is advice number one.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And frankly, according to Pew Research I read recently, Americans are paying a lot of attention to the sources quoted in news stories.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, they may or may not trust the news media, but they trust the sources quoted in the news media.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that gives you more value.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: You have to build your trust, build your credibility.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I would encourage anybody who's interested in communicating to not hide their head in the sands and to become a trusted authority.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Reach out to your communications division if you have one in your organization and let them know that you're interested and see what that'll take.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because frankly, communications departments sometimes have to pull doctors and nurses into doing this.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think that they'd be very happy to hear about somebody's willingness.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, Eileen, you've given us a lot of really great advice today.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you had three takeaways that you would want people to have, what would they be?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: The media is a tool.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people get angry with the media.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people rant and rave about how the media takes sides or can't be trusted.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is the media remains one of the most effective communications tools in a toolbox.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: It is effective in educating the public, whether that is broadcast media or social media.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of media out there.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's important to respect its potential.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I tell people all the time.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: You have to respect its potential and learn how to use it to convey the information that you need to the public.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, trust is built up over time.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's not built up during a crisis.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's sustained during a crisis.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's sustained by truth, by empathy, by humility, by confidence, and by courage.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then number three, speak in sound bites, speak with simplicity and clarity, and repeat, repeat, repeat.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much, Eileen.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: This was a great conversation.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was really a pleasure having you here today.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: As a reminder, this episode is one in a multi-part series.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Be on the lookout for our remaining episodes.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I read it on Facebook, Managing Misinformation in the Age of Social Media and Communicating with Minorities and Underrepresented Groups, which will launch in the upcoming weeks.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can find more educational content like this podcast on Shay's online education center, Learning CE, at www.learningce.shayonline.org.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: This concludes episode one of the communication in the age of fake news series.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in.