Emergency Managers and the Challenge of Finding Truth in Times of Crisis

By Dan Stoneking, writing for Homeland Security Today

The classic 2003 children’s movie, Finding Nemo, shares several important lessons.  Among them are working through anxiety, overcoming fear, gaining confidence, and learning to trust.  These same themes envelop emergency managers and crisis communicators when we seek to find truth.  Unfortunately, finding truth is a real-world adult challenge.  And it is not always easy.  In Finding Nemo, Marlin had to bravely traverse the deep-sea trench in order to face his problems.  Finding truth in a crisis is just as ominous and yet more multi-layered.  

Finding truth in a crisis requires exploration through a minefield of misinformation, disinformation, social media platforms, algorithms, propaganda, group think, the Abilene Paradox, and an unhealthy dose of cognitive dissonance.  And it is a two-step process for each.  Step one is to understand the dynamic; step two is figuring out how to overcome it, push through it, find truth.  

Misinformation | Disinformation  

This has been covered ad nauseum for a few years and yet we don’t seem to be making traction.  My friend Ed Conley and I wrote about this in a HSToday column in October 2024, called Confronting Misinformation During Disasters.  Many have identified the problem, but we tried to offer strategies to combat them, to include anticipation, monitoring protocols, rapid response, collaboration, confrontation and leveraging credible sources.  I stand behind these, but in the almost year since then, it is clear that misinformation/disinformation have become only a few of the hurdles we need to overcome in order to swim past the trenches of dishonesty.  

Social Media Platforms  

Marshall McLuhan once coined a phrase explaining that the medium is the message. This essentially means that the medium (the technology or platform used to deliver information) has a greater impact on society and individuals than the specific content it carries.  Whether we follow LinkedIn, Facebook, X, Truth Social, Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat implies a great deal about how we consume information, and often how we interpret it.  It is a safe bet the Truth Social and X have a more conservative following and content, while Bluesky is more liberal.  

Even when the ideology is not the driving force, the medium can still influence us and we need to monitor the changing tides.  Less than two years ago LinkedIn was more focused on job searches, industry updates, and professional dialogue.  Today, it has become more of a battleground for debate, derision, and divisiveness.  As we leverage these social media platforms, we need to be cognizant of these changes and conscious about how we perceive them and address them.  The evolution (or devolution) of these platforms creates another barrier to truth.    

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