In the digital age, leaders need to think like journalists
November 17/2016
If your work puts you in the midst of thorny public discussions, or if you’re in the business of constantly feeding new ideas into the marketplace, your rules of communications are changing fast.
“Spin”, the standard practice of relentlessly turning everything into a platform for one simple message, has turned toxic. The tools of “spin” now set eyes rolling – glib tweets, rosy press releases and canned statements. Most audiences are too well informed for that kind of manipulation.
In the post-spin age, public leaders who think like journalists come out ahead. Not least because serious news organizations are inviting thoughtful leaders to help shape the debates they curate, even as old-style press releases gather digital dust in their e-mail queues.