HONESTLY SPEAKING

Is The Demand For Truth & Honesty An Emerging Trend

Kevin Frankish November 2018

 You obviously want to be a trend-setter, right? You know, the first to be in on what all the cool kids are going to be doing? Well, just in time for the American mid-terms let’s talk about HONESTY. Yes, honesty! It is my belief that we have grown so weary with lies and being scammed that there is an undertow of a new trend that, if you want to succeed in business and politics in the future, you better jump on board. 

LIES have increased by over 78% in the last two years. New research suggests George Washington actually lied to his father someone else cut down The Cherry Tree and didn't tell him the truth until he was on his death bed. Lying is proven medically to cause warts.

Three sentences in and I have already lied to you three times. Well, I didn’t lie, I just bent the truth a little, embellished, finessed the truth, told some white lies, took some poetic licence. Sure I realize that many people only bother to read the first paragraph of an article and then share that information as gospel. So what?

So what?

Benjamin Franklin said “Honesty is the best policy” but he is also quoted as saying “A penny saved is a penny earned.” He did NOT say the latter…that is a 270 year old lie.

We have taken THE TRUTH for granted for so long and now THE TRUTH is on the endangered species list. Who let this happen? It was Trump, right? Darn him!

We see the war on truth having started in the 2016 American election campaign with Donald Trump. The Washington Bureau Chief for The Toronto Star Daniel Dale has taken on the task of tracking Trump’s “False Claims” on an hourly basis. (False Claims, not LIES…because the TRUTH is on a sliding scale these days). The latest number of False Claims…3084, and counting.

No worries. Once the mid-terms are over the Democrats will launch a crusade and rein in the slie and return us to a time of honour and truth.

OK…that previous statement was not only a lie but it was a truck load of bull excrement.

The truth is Donald Trump only opened up Pandora’s Box Of Untruth. It is actually WE who have been packing that box full of LIES, innuendo and acceptance of same for thousands of years.

We have not only accepted lies as a way of life in politics and business, we have actually come to expect it. At election time we accept that a good deal of what candidates promise us are false claims. We expect businesses to bend the truth to sell us their products. I’m pretty honest with my wife…most of the time.

I conducted a very unscientific poll recently on my social media. People overwhelmingly say they expect the truth. Interestingly a slight majority of the respondents admitted to “bending the truth”.

Poll conducted Over 24 Hours Nov 1–2, 2018 Kevin Frankish Twitter Account

People mourn the passing of HONESTY in their comments, especially when it comes to media.

My unscientific poll is kind of in contrast to an extensive one done by Edleman, the world's largest P.R. agency. I mean if you want to compare…my poll was done over a few hours with a few hundred votes. Their’s was only done by professionals over a month with thousands of respondents from around the world. Yeah, I thought their take was pretty weak too..but heck I’ll give ’em a bit of press.

Seriously, their 2018 Trust Barometer paints a complex picture of our trust in media …it’s complicated. How complicated? 

Remember trying to wrap your mind around Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium Is The Message”? With apologies to Marshall, the medium is no longer just the message, so is the messenger…and the platform that messenger uses. In other words we now are faced with the task of discerning if a story is true, if the person delivering that story is trustworthy, if their employer has another agenda and if the platform that message is conveyed on is based more on an algorithm rather than honesty. (try and digest that you U of T philosophy majors) 

While Canadian media fared better in the study than it did in 2017, we still see a 50–50 split between trust and distrust in Canadian media. This is disturbing because our media should be our “go-to” for trust and honesty. We depend on our scribes to be unbiased and report the facts ma’am, just the facts. Dig through all of the numbers and you find that journalism itself is enjoying a rebound in trust while the “packages” our news is delivered in are still met with suspicion. 

The poll also underlines the fact that we search for honesty in more than just journalism and politics. It finds that 70 per cent of respondents feel that building trust should be a priority for any CEO.

So, in conclusion, TRUTH is close to being extinct and we are doomed to being a society of deceit, fraud and trickery.

The End.

*. *. *. *. *

Wait a minute!

There might actually be hope on the horizon. It is something I noted in my final few years on television.

Truth is becoming the next trend. Truth is coming back into fashion. Truth is about to be the next “must-have” for any business, politician or media outlet for 2019!

I often got into trouble with my bosses for my honesty on air sometimes. I was told I was risking angering a sponsor or was out of line even when commenting on my own parent company. It wasn’t that I was running around “exposing” them but rather some comments became uncomfortable. I was also honest with my own life. From revealing a severe depressive disorder to just revealing I was in a bad mood, I was often admonished for being too honest. “It’s not done on TV.” “ Just stick to the script”. (Quickly I want to say that my company was quite supportive and allowed me a wide berth when it came to editorial content…but business is business and there is usually a company line to tow).

You know what? People responded. Many were surprised but relieved at honesty. Yes, it was refreshing to hear the unfiltered truth. What a novelty? (Truth be told, there were times that my reporting was not 100% honest…remember when I said earlier that honesty is on a sliding scale. Again, this is another article)

I recently was paid to endorse a product. It was a very good product but it was expensive. The client would rather I did not mention the price. I argued that I could not talk up something and lead people on that this was in everyone’s budget. It is my hope that people responded favourably to this.

It would be great to give you some facts and figures. Tell you that honesty results in a 15 per cent increase in loyalty. The problem is this is only a theory I have but isn’t that where trends come from, someone’s idea of what people might like?

I can tell you that I noticed a very positive response when an uncomfortable honesty was revealed. I do know people don’t vote, don’t participate in democracy because they throw up their arms in the swamp of lies. I do know that people are tired of click-bait, scams and con jobs.

What if there was a politician who didn’t promise you a tax cut we can’t afford? What if a CEO didn’t allow for budget cuts and layoffs blaming a downturn in the economy but still somehow producing a healthy dividend to shareholders? What if media mainly reported facts in a news story and left the editorializing to transparent segments that indeed respected different points of view?

Mark my words. Honesty is indeed the best policy…but it is the next great trend. Individuals and companies that allow the dents in their armour to show will see their brand grow as a very weary populous searches for something, or someone, to believe in.

Being a trend-setter is not without risk. You put yourself out there. You have to gamble that this is indeed what people want. My humble advice…go all in. Invest in HONESTY.