Source:
https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-czdja-14e1a49
Atrocities against innocents in the Middle East. Another mass shooting in the U.S. Every day, something new to absorb and process. Now more than ever, PR pros need to lead the way in communicating clearly in all of this uncertainty.
Read Hope and the Hard Things on the Solo PR Pro blog.
Transcript
Michelle Kane (00:17):
Thank you for joining us for another episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my ever wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen. How are you doing today?
Karen Swim, APR (00:36):
Hi, apparently Michelle, I'm doing better than you. You are soldiering through in spite of a major allergy attack here.
Michelle Kane (00:46):
Yay. This is what I get for peopling. Yeah, it happens. It happens. You get around the wrong things. That just anger your sinuses. And here we are. So it's supremely annoying, but I'll put it up against, there are unfortunately real problems in the world, so I'll soldier on. There's no joy in Mudville. Our Phillies are out of it, but I thank them for a wonderful ride and go, Rangers.
Karen Swim, APR (01:16):
In the past three years, I think that we've all learned that because the world has continuously been on fire, literally, and it's just been one thing after another. So I think that we've learned how to both mourn and still have joy because you cannot live in despair. You just cannot. So there are real things happening in the world, but we do try to find some space for laughter, for joy, for friends and loved ones and having lighter moments. And today we have a pretty serious topic to talk about, but we hope to inflect it with a little bit of hope for all of you out there. So let's dig into it.
Michelle Kane (02:01):
Let's do it. Yes. I mean, certainly with the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and I know conflict is a mild word, there's been a lot of horrific scenes taking place in the name of power in just thousands of years of animosity. We know that. And as communicators, our eyes and ears are attuned to the messaging that's out there. There's a lot of propaganda. There is a lot of hurt feelings on both the Jewish and Muslim, I hate to say sides, but amongst people of, Hey, why aren't you standing up for us? Why aren't you standing up for us? And it's just, again, as with anything we've seen, I hate to say in recent years because I know we can go back hundreds of years and point out misinformation and propaganda, but it just seems, especially with the onset of our digital world, the waters are so incredibly muddy and murky. I mean, one thing we know is true outright murdering innocents is never right. Let's start there.
Karen Swim, APR (03:16):
Let's start there. And I always think about, there's this newsletter that I subscribed to and it's called 1440, and their tagline is “Facts Without Motives.” And they share just the facts. So all the headlines, all the news, unbiased reporting, and I love reading it because it is a good reminder as a communicator that is also my job. Facts without motives, whatever your personal feelings are about politics, what's going on in the world, the wars, who's right, who's wrong as communicators, we have to understand that we do serve diverse audiences and that our communication does need to be factual and we cannot inflict our personal opinions and biases upon our communications. And so we've seen a lot of missteps that have been hurtful, but I also am encouraged by the public relation pros who have stepped up and who have taken the rhetoric out of it all and said, we focus on human life, period does not matter because it's very troubling to me that there have been communications put out by organizations that have actually incited and incentivized hatred against any group, against Muslims, against the Jewish community.
This is horrific to me. It pains me. And it's so hard when you see that because number one, in the United States of America, there are so many different religions. You cannot, cannot paint everyone with the same brush. Every Muslim is not a terrorist. Have we not learned one single thing from 9/11? These are our neighbors, these are our colleagues, these are our friends. They're often our family members. Please value human beings and human life. Yes, there's a time and a place for political activism. Yes, there's a time and a place to debate how you feel about this, but it is not as a professional communicator. And I would encourage you to counsel your clients and the organizations that you serve that when putting out statements, if you put out a statement that supports one side or the other, you are eliminating a big swath of your audience. You have to hold space for everyone because I think that we can all agree that decapitating babies is not ok
