Critical Thinking and Childless Cat Ladies

What a headline-heavy summer! The Olympics, the Kamala Harris candidacy announcement, and attempted assassination of DT pepper our feeds.

Why should you care? Because the volume and speed of news invites us to take stock of our news diet, and to cultivate greater discernment. Our job as market leaders is to pause, not panic.

Otherwise, how could we possibly keep up with the childless cat lady memes? (I found this one while scrolling the myriad Cat Ladies Facebook groups):

Here in the USA, Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance did more for Kamala Harris’ record-breaking marketing campaign (I mean fundraising) with one quip than any other opponent in recent history. His Fox News comments from a Tucker Carlson interview became the hiss heard around the globe.

I am not getting political here. I will simply say this: I am rooting for preserving a two-party system, a rock-solid Constitution, and a vibrant democracy.

Here is my perspective as a strategist…and a childless cat lady. I am simply gob smacked at the impact of this communications Kung Fu fight. I am tempted to jump into the name-calling fray. But my mindfulness practice helps me stand on the sidelines and practice peaceful disobedience.

Whatever country you call home, I hope you observe our election season and learn how messaging can either help or hurt your critical thinking abilities.

During this election season, my fellow Americans face a crossroads between civility or chaos. And it starts by taking stock of our news diet. I could have never predicted that our 86th podcast and livestream focused on helping you fight fake news and protect your brand. Call it cat-crazy—but the show dropped at a time when we needed these reminders the most.

Watch the show here (37 minutes).

Listen on Apple Podcasts here.

In this episode we welcomed Jack Brewster of NewsGuard. They are committed to providing transparent tools to counter fake news for marketers, business leaders, and democracies. You probably remember reading his epic Wall Street Journal essay. It outlined his experience building a fake news site in less than 48 hours and less than $150. That’s not a typo.

In short, here's what you can do to quiet the fake news noise and protect your brand:

1. Practice “pre-bunking” across the company. Jack recommends that "readers should be informed about sources that often share misinformation so they can critically evaluate the information they encounter."

2. Before you take the content seriously, copy the story into Google. Verify the source. Are they a Tier 1, credible site?

3. Embrace a healthy media diet.? Cut your social media consumption by just five minutes a day. Please avoid using Facebook, Instagram, or X as your "go-to" news feeds. Divert 5 minutes’ worth of energy to Tier 1 sources, such as The Economist, Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

4. Refine your critical thinking skills. A lot of my CEO and CMO clients have young, inexperienced team members running their content and communications strategies. Their inexperience does not excuse misinformation and junk content.

It is incumbent on leaders to help younger professionals build critical thinking and strategic muscles. Invest in courses, such as "Developing Critical Thinking Skills" by my fellow LinkedIn Learning instructor Becki Saltzman . I love her work.

5. When using generative AI tools to brainstorm or summarize, ask the tool for exact sources and the URL to that source. Then ? TEST that link. Some will not work. Never trust just one source. Keep digging and triangulating.Bad links have appeared in my prompts dozens of times, and I use paid versions of ChatGPT and Claude.

Here’s hoping hallucination goes the way of cat lady memes—and soon.

Among these five fake news fighters, which one will you implement? Paws for a moment and drop me your thoughts at [email protected].

Watch the replay here.

copyright 2024, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.

This post was created fully by me, and I did not use any AI tools.

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