Can the Supreme Court get you off the hook in J class?

The Supreme Court of Canada issued a new ruling on Tuesday which can help journalists, bloggers, and anyone else who circulates information to defend themselves against a libel lawsuit.

And here’s the kicker: they can do so even if some of their facts are found to be untrue, provided they show they tried to verify the facts and that the information is in the public interest.

Well, that sure levels the playing field a bit.

CBC is flagging the new defense, called “responsible communication”, as a benefit for Canadian journalists. But I’m not so sure.

Double-checking facts is one of the things that separates us journalists from any common Joe out there with a blog or a Twitter account. Checking our facts and sources before publishing means, more often than not, we get our stories right.

Sure, it may take a little longer for the news to get out to the public. Instead of simply hitting the “update” button on the Twitter page, we spend time confirming our information is accurate.

But I’m willing to wait, rather than take every story with a grain of salt, knowing it could be untrue.

When I read something in the Free Press, or head something on CBC radio, I could trust that what I was being told was accurate because, as journalists, it was their job to make sure they had their facts straight before going to air or putting the story to print.

I knew this wasn’t the case with what I read on Twitter, or someone’s blog, so when I visited these sites I made sure – as our journalism instructor Steve Vogelsang would say – I had my BS meter turned on.

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow journalists to defend untrue facts by pleading “responsible communication” means we no longer have this criteria by which to judge the news we see or hear.

You would have thought they’d have learned their lesson by now: inaccuracy can cause major problems.

Photo Credit.

Back in October 2008, a citizen journalist for CNN by the name of “johntw” mistakenly reported to the iReport website that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had just suffered a severe heart attack.

The story was quickly picked up by other mainstream media and sent the Twitterverse into a frenzy.

Within the first hour of trading on the day Steve Job’s heart attack was falsely reported, the market value of Apple went down $4.8 billion.

Whether “johntw” intended on creating this hoax, or was simply passing on a rumour and thought he’d beat the mainstream media to it, the dangerous effects of false reporting, especially in the technological age, remain.

Some, like the Toronto Star lawyer Paul Schabas, says it better reflects freedom of speech, and that may be so, but free speech comes with a price.

Too many Steve Jobs-like hoaxes can cause well established and credible news corporations like the CBC to lose their reputation and the public’s trust in them for quality news.

And if journalists start to make the same sloppy fact checking (or no checking at all) that frequent bloggers and tweeters alike, we will likely see more costly mistakes, all in the name of public interest.

Ultimately, it still comes down to whether the Supreme Court believes the information is in the public interest, and that the author tried to verify the facts.

While the new ruling does have the potential to be liberating, it would still be wise to tread carefully.

Continue to double-check your facts and sources.

The question is, just how many will?

Hey boss - what's your colour?

Yesterday, the CBC radio program The Current analysed a new trend in today’s workplaces: personality testing.

CBC focused on Insights Discovery, a company who uses personality tests to categorize employees by colour: cool blue, earth green, sunshine yellow, and fiery red, which focuses on their preferences for thinking, working, and communicating.

As someone who’ll be entering the workforce full-time within the next few years, I was interested. And as I listened further – concerned.

Of course, there’s the issue of stereotyping, which can have both positive and negative side effects.

Our brains use stereotypes as cognitive shortcuts, making it easier for us to process information quickly, so knowing the personalities of our co-workers can make it easier for us to understand and communicate with them. Sounds good.

But stereotypes also make it easier to process who’s in our “in-group” and who’s in the “out-group”. And that means it may influence who should get that promotion.

According to David Zweig, professor of psychology at the U of T, “we’re all cognitive misers: we don’t like using our brains any more than we have to. So if I can identify you, for example, as blue, that’s how I’m going to code you. And every interaction I have with you, I’m going to think of it in the context of “oh, you’re blue.” So perhaps when it comes to deciding who I’m going to promote, I may think so-and-so‘s not good for this job because she’s a blue. We need a green.”

Err... not so good.

And consider this: the majority of employees being tested are those in entry-level positions. In the United States, 1 in 3 workers between the ages of 18-24 reports that they have taken these types of workplace personality tests.

The danger here is being “labelled” as a certain personality early on in their career and limiting their potential.

And not being able to account for change is crucial.

When first setting foot in my new work environment, I may be quiet, shy, and prefer more formal modes of communication like memos and business meetings.

Taking the personality test as this early stage may categorize me as a colour I may no longer “be” a few months, or a few years, down the road as I become more comfortable with my work environment and co-workers, evolving into a more open, less shy person who prefers more informal methods of communication like meeting over lunch.

That’s not to mention employees arriving from other workplace environments where they may have had to develop a certain type of personality to fit in. At first, they may approach their job with the same personality as they did their old job, but over time, adjust their mannersims to fit their new workplace

People are not static, and neither are their personalities, so one test will not reveal all. But if companies opt for periodic testing to account for change, exactly how much time should be devoted to the process?

And in the end, as Anna Maria Tremonti, the host of The Current, said: aren’t we just saying that everyone’s multidimentional and do we need a test for that?

Personality tests do have their benefits, in that sometimes we don’t know ourselves, and these tests are a way of discovering who we are.

But in the same way, this benefit is also a problem.

If there is one common thread I’ve noticed from taking personality tests, it’s that people (myself included) do not always answer the questions honestly – either intentionally, or unintentionally.

Some of us would rather not admit that we react badly to stress, while others may simply not be aware of the fact.

It’s like being asked at those get-to-know-you sessions to “tell us something interesting about yourself” – sometimes it’s better to ask those who know you and witness your behaviour.

The way we see ourselves is not necessarily who we are, so in placing ourselves in these personality categories, are we really creating a true representation of ourselves, or just a model of who we think we are?

In the end, you’ll still have people who are red, blue, yellow, and green, only they may say they think, work, and communicate in certain ways, when in reality, they’re just the opposite.

Maybe it’s better to put the colour wheel aside and let time, interaction, and experience help you decipher who’s who in the office.

Download The Current's podcast on workplace personality testing here.

Twitter-cism on the latest social media fad

I’ll admit it: at first blush, I was attracted to Twitter.

Its colourful, fresh vector design layouts appealed to the creative in me, and the short, one-sentence updates free for viewing to all on the worldwide web appealed to the minute attention-seeking part of me that (judging by the content of most of the tweets on Twitter) I think is in all of us, whether we’d like to admit it or not.

But then, thankfully, that moment passed.

Andy Warhol said in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. But in today’s world of electronic social media, it often seems like everyone is trying to draw attention to the importance of themselves for way more than 15 minutes.

For example, right now I’m eating cinnamon toast. Does anyone care that I’m eating cinnamon toast? Or, more importantly, should anyone care? Of course not.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Twitter users that I have seen use Twitter to do just that. It reminds me of a cheeky photo Kimberlee posted on her blog: never before have so many people with so little to say said so much.

As I mentioned in class today, up until now I didn’t have a Twitter account for the very fact that I know I’m not important enough to broadcast my daily (or hourly, or minutely, or secondly) activities to the world (then again - is anyone this important, really?) and for the fact that other people are using it in this way.

So I posed the question: how can Twitter be used other than as a “status update” tool? (Maybe I should have said: is Twitter meant to be used other than as a “status update” tool because now that I think of it, the very fact that Twitter is based around the question “What are you doing right now?” (since changed to “What’s happening?”) confirms my suspicions.)

Kenton assured me it can (still getting back to me on the “how” part), if you know how to use it. If that’s the case, then looking around, there’s lots of people (including me!) who don’t know how.

I’m not saying I can’t see the potential – I agree, it is there. As Case Stevens said on his blog: “you have personal access to anyone using Twitter and all people [on] Twitter are VERY responsive!” I haven’t tried them out yet, but those hashtags look powerful, and for those in marketing, advertising, public relations, etc. that rely on public feedback, Twitter is definitely an instant way of getting it.

But, looking around once again, the vast majority of Twitter users (including me!) don’t have such a cause – hence my second question: should everyone have a Twitter account?

I’m now on Twitter because it was required for my public relations course, and I’m more than willing to hear some suggestions as to how I can use my newfound media tool in a way that is meaningful.

Otherwise I fear I’m just going to become yet another mundane person tweeting about eating cinnamon toast, hoping someone will notice.

Procrastinate – CreComm style

Procrastination has never been more entertaining since I discovered chrisd.ca and his collection of newcast/media related bloopers.

As I said earlier, news is all the more entertaining when journalists go off script. It’s even more entertaining when it means I can temporarily delay the college-related task at hand, get a good laugh, and learn some valuable broadcast production lessons along the way.

Lesson #1: A TV broadcast is the product of a team effort. If someone isn’t doing their job, everyone just looks bad (especially those on camera).

Lesson #2: The floor director is important: watch for the floor director’s cues! Or: floor director, give less confusing cues!

Lesson #3: Pronunciation quizzes in radio class? Don’t need ‘em for TV!

Lesson #4: Giggling. And what to do when it happens on-screen.

Finally, the most crucial and hilarious lesson of all:

Lesson #5: Pets and interviewers do not mix. Especially on live television.