Trust in government. Live coverage here on cspan2. Okay. Good morning. This is fred kempe from the Atlantic Council, and thank you for tuning in to this timely, unfortunate timely conversation on Public Trust Institutions and the corona virus epidemic. First of all i want to thank our speakers who are here today and itll just joined us online for being responsive to the call for social distancing. We actually dont think that social distancing contradicts common cause and thats the way were going to run the Atlantic Council during this period of time. We see this moment as a challenge. Went to keep ourselves safe. We as Atlantic Council have to keep our staff safe, arcing or be safe at the same time we have to rally our community globally, transit medically at the town to take on the challenge of the sort that none of us have seen in our lifetimes. The we do not have you in the room, we encourage you to engage in our discussion. Please use the hashtag ac coronavirus, ac coronavirus. Throughout this event to comment and ask questions. Our team is going to be monitoring your questions and passing them to the moderators so we can do this as much as possible as an interactive, very interactive manner. You will get more of the sort of thing from the Atlantic Council. Were going to be even more tested taken on this challenge and we should be under our mission of working together with her friends and partners to shape the future. Panel of experts was called together through the Atlantic Council programs, the Scowcroft Center for strategy and security, the Rockefeller Foundation resilience center. Atlantic council are working rapidly to respond to provide all of you with as much of us it is a can in real time but at the same time to provide policy ideas, ideas of how we can collaborate better across the world and across the atlantic. We find ourselves bracing for major geopolitical and you Economic Impact as covid19 spreads, is causing chaos, confusion around the globe. Also the beginnings of common cause. What we know already is the coronavirus has reached some 130 countries, latest count is 1000 circuit 169,700 cases, and in the United States it could be as many as 80 deaths now. The website has 81 and 3782 cases. What we know is that information including this information and misinformation about the Novel Coronavirus is spreading faster than the pandemic itself. While navigating what the World Health Organization refers to as an infodemic in the midst of the global spread of a Novel Coronavirus, we must all turn to fax first. As always the words we use matter. The w. H. O. Updated their assessment of covid19 to a pandemic. The president of the United States call for national emergency. There is reason the term viral applies to both. The spread of false information about pandemic threat is reading confusion and panic, and making it harder to mount a Public Health response. Where International Experts are necessary for overall understanding of the coronavirus, this moment also underscores the importance and current degeneration of hyper local information virus, whether friends and neighbors or local officials and the media which people turn to when trying to decide whether it is safe to walk down the street or go to the grocery store. This weekend anthony pouch of the director the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases said with a pick such this tony fauci whenever are what we think we are. Were assuming the numbers today and the spread thats already happen today we wont even know about until 60 days from now and thats the kind of process we must face. When it was going to see a spread, or also going to see a spread that is already taken place but we are just catching up with this because of the spread now of some more testing kits so we know the numbers. As he said if you think you in line, if you think youre in line with the outbreak, you already three weeks i did. Youve got to be almost overreacting a bit to keep up with it and thats why we expect more announcements in the coming hours, precautions that people will be instructed to take in the United States, and elsewhere. What we are learning in real time is a proactive, this is a really important line, directive countries, societies, and individuals do best. They are performing better than reactive ones. Governments who engage in truth telling are heading of danger faster than those that obfuscate or those that delay. And as the number of confirmed cases rises, individuals and communities are increasingly required to make judgments about the trustworthiness of institutions and information. In the face of this uncertainty today we brought together this panel of experts to help us understand how individuals may access trustworthy information about the outbreak and what governments, the Public Sector, the private sector in the media should be doing to gain public trust. Thats the key word right now is a trust. I do want to get for joining us for this timely conversation. Im going to hand it over to my colleague Graham Brookie, director managing editor of the Digital Forensic research lab. He will be moderating todays discussion. I also will not be introducing the panelists body do want to give a great warm thanks to my friend Richard Edelman in new york whos going to give us some interesting information from some work they have done. Richard is in the city that never sleeps but now is shutting down its restaurants and bars, whoever thought we would see that . Let me pass to Graham Brookie to kick us off. Thanks, grandma. My name is Graham Brookie. Thanks, graham. Id like to start the echoing freds remarks of affecting alf you for joining on zoom, youtube any other platform. If youre forgot how to also like to give you a warm welcome to the internet. Though youre not in the room with us, we love your engagement and questions. To reiterate if you have any questions please use the hashtag ac coronavirus. If youre the assume please add your question to chat. If you tune in on facebook please leave your question in the comments section and if youre monitoring, well, we are monitoring all of those channels and will be taking questions here at the end of the conversation. This conversation is happening at a a critical time. Were learning more about the pandemic minute by minute. The conversation about objective, this conversation a a particular is not objective information and public trust which is for us collective challenge that involves government and media and the private sector. We are here today joined by folks that have experience in all those things. Direct that my left i join at an appropriate distance by lisa ross, edelman used chief operating officer who leads the edelman d. C. Office as president. Tom bossert who served as the president Homeland Security advisor, and is a Current National analyst at abc. And sara fischer who is the media reporter at axios and author of the weekly axios media newsletters, media trends newsletter, sorry, i screwed that up. And joining us via the duke of her skin is edelman, ceo of edelman who is launching a special report today on the 2020 Edelman Trust barometer specific on the coronavirus. Ill take moderators prerogative and just set a few ground rules. First and foremost this first and only best practice is always referring back to the latest sciencebased information. If you havent already please visit coronavirus. Gov, a website thats updated on a continuous basis by the centers for Disease Control. Second, as the Digital Research forensic lab here, we use certain terms and we dont use other terms. We dont use the term fake news. Turns out its not a particularly Good Research term. It is objective and causes more harm than not. What we do use is a term misinformation which we define as resident false information without intent meaning is not deliberate. We also use the term disinformation which is the spread of false information with intent. In this moment of global infodemic, were seeing a lot of both. Third, and infodemic is defined by the World Health Organization as an overabundance of information. Some accurate and some not, that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it. And right now we need it most. Id like to start this conversation by kicking it over to richard who will go over some of the key findings from this report. Richard, over to you. Tanks, grandma. We been doing studies in trust for the past 20 years and there are important trendlines to look at, which is specifically that trust in government and trust in media are at quite a low ab. And this is something that has happened over the last five to six years. In governments case its really been since the problems over the budgets in washington, the gap between trust and business and government is at record levels. In fact, in some countries as much as 50 points. The media, major media has maintained its position but the overall rank in media trusts has declined because of social media which is not trusted in the low 20s in western developed markets, democracies. We go into this crisis understanding that the relative position of institutions has changed. Businesses are the most trusted followed shortly thereafter by ngos [inaudible] at a pretty low ab. What this has caused is a real and very important change in weight in which trust is trust was from the topdown, vertical. About ten is ago, trust became horizontal and went peertopeer. In the last two years trust has moved local. The most trusted institution in the world today is my employer. 20 points higher than in normal business and 30point or more higher than in government or media. And what that means is that theres new expectations in the corporation that ceos are expected to speak up on issues of the day, and there is no more important issue of the day than coronavirus. And so this study was undertaken literally ten ten days ago bece we were hearing about infodemic and it was a misinformation, disinformation curse and how bad was it, who were people believing, how are they getting their information without this was vital importance to understand what role the could be for the private sector in supplementing that of the Public Sector and other media. And so we went out to ten countries over the last week. Its in europe, the u. S. , a couple countries in asia, korea and japan, south africa, et cetera. And what we found is deeply important. Specifically, that the most credible source of information is actually my employer. 13point type in media, and five points higher than in government. And so my employer plays a central role in credible information. The Mainstream Media is the most frequently referred to information source, followed by the cdc, w. H. O. , et cetera. The most credible spokespeople are scientists, cdc and w. H. O. , but also a person like me. So it reinforces this idea that trust is conferred horizontally or peertopeer. We find that theres a deep need for frequency of information contact. So if my employer is the most trusted, they want people to be communicating at least daily if not twice a day. So it needs to be fresh information. And about what . Well, specifically what is going on at the company. So vacation or paid leave or whats happening in terms of your employee force or what your policies are on benefits. But it also are expecting there to be face forward for leaders. They want credible information in third parties. They want scientists. They want people who have academic credentials, experts. They dont want politicians. And i want to reiterate, theres a deep in our study about the quantization of the discussion. More than secured of people believe somehow some of this is being created by the politics of the time. That is a deeply important problem. We must stop that out. This must not seen as good for one party or another. It is whats good for society. Further, i want to reiterate that theres a clear sense that my employer is better prepared than my country. 14point difference between my employer and my country. And so again, the role of business in communicating quality information on a frequent basis from scientists and other experts cannot be more clearly stated in this study. So again, the information context is that yes, we won information from Health Authorities, but is not sufficient. We are not sure that it is so. And moreover, we are not sure that what were getting from Mainstream Media is sufficient. We deeply does trust social media. Onethird of people told us specifically, anything they see in they completely discount. So again the platform for truth must encompass a major contribution by business, which must do so frequently and must do so through credible sources such as scientists and experts. Thank you. Thank you very much, richard. For our panelists, for your first intervention what im going to ask you to do is mention at least one source of information that you found incredibly useful or that you learn something from or is objective about covid19. So for your first intervention make sure to plug one source of information. First question is to sara. In the report, respondents shared their getting most of their information about virus from major media organizations over National Government sources, Global Health organizations, or National Health authorities like the cdc. But it also found that respondents trust journalists the least to tell the truth about the virus. How do you see news organizations like yours dating with that various between those findings . I think in times of crises, especially ones that encounter numbers or encounter total number of cases that fluctuate over time, one thing people are turning to the news organizations is really strong data. Youll see the things that are going viral on social media are charts that are being produced by the Washington Post and fox media. Thats why think people really trust news organizations right now. Its not the same, however, some adjusting a report by a certain author or reporter. Now is the time were news organizations need to bring authority of the organization about authority of the journalist. With one exception. If you really strong subject Matter Experts within your walls. So, for example, it might make sense to elevate if you are the New York Times who their top science report has been all of the news lately. That might make sense to elevate your topsides reported to be taught by cases, how they spread, et cetera. Might make sense in another case to elevate your top most report on how the market is reacting but otherwise i think the pieces that are done really well, the people really trust other people that stand by life or not by vine first but they are really graphic heavy and the help people understand the disease more so than help people vicinity. [inaudible] one of the ways i which journalist writ large can get around that trust issue is to make sure their lifting up of voices, that they are either cover it or they have inhouse in order to build more circles of trust. Was yes. And use data as much as we possibly can. News organizations are wellequipped to create really smart graphics. I cant stress enough thats when and why think news organizations to be really powerful arbiters of truth and quality information. You kind of bank shot into it but you mentioned two or three sources specifically of good information could you mentioned the david digitalization from the Washington Post that essentially showed projections on how to flatten curve as follows are there any other very good source of information to include the media trends newsletter . I think one good source of information thats not necessarily a Media Company is really continue to check in with government websites. Thats the thing youll hear about from other panelists but information you are getting from the World Health Organization, getting from your local Health Authorities is another is the a where i would point people to really strong quality information about this virus. Thank you. Markets are not the only indicator but weve seen when the overall federal government communicates policy, like the click of national emergency, markets responded very positively to that. But weve also seen whenever President Trump hursley committee gets about this via Twitter Twitter the markets tend to respond negatively. Take a seat back into your old role, which for those who dont know, its in the Basement Office that is very low clearance and no windows whatsoever. If you had your old job right now, how would you advise the president not only on how to respond to a pandemic threat how to respond and navigate this pandemic . Firstly what is is a might be a part left out as as a thank u to Richard Edelman for putting this piece up out because this report is based on data. People are gravitating towards data and if theyre not they should be. This isnt richards opinion and a support member that. This is richards dated driven conclusion. Id like to back into this by saying i have the benefit of being in this confluence of two of those categories that we could just laid out. If you are 60 of my cards that work with in the last 15 years are also highly respected academic people of credential professional areas of expertise, i learn from them. I meant toward some of them. They have mentor to me. They of the worlds leading epidemiologist and virologist at the heads of Public Health departments in their states and local communities in major universities. I that visually interesting opportunity at this particular pandemic outbreak of each of them almost working for each other, including myself. So ive got graphics and data and analysis by people that are literally the worlds best recognized in their field. It strikes me that as you referenced government websites, government authorities, thats a very important point to hammer home. But what i would do is flip your question about and give the the president advice and all the people who work for the president here that would be my job to chordate all their action. Action. I would caution against a number things but one of them is mission creep. Each of us on this email chain that i been on a phone calls routine that i been on constantly remind one another not in a critical way but in a real kind of helpful reminder way, stay in our lanes. When i repeat something that is medical in nature, some analytic science or math, some analysis can i say this is what ive been told by experts in the steel. This is not my back of the envelope math. The notion here is telling the present what to do, you dont tell the president. You advise him and our principles that i would advise any leader and a do this frequently and so it does richd when we give advice to leaders in business and incumbent, you should tell people what you know, you should avoid telling them what you dont know. In that category you should acknowledge uncertainty if you ask a question that you dont know the answer to. Its important to the affirmative about that and not just passive. When i tell people not to tell others what they dont know, it seems like a double negative and they will of course have i dont know i wont say it or i wont speculate. You should also acknowledge areas of uncertainty and that public trust will be with you throughout the process when you stick to those two keys. Theres a few additions i would be advising this president currently under think is, rent on his fried address in delivering not only action, but he is moved into something thats that crisis or public trust in nature. He started to foreshadow the future. Maintain public trust. That keeps the people that are all walks of life but you often see it unfortunately after crimes or a shooting, you see this gaggle of reporters around an officer that is trained to be a Public Affairs officer. He will say what he knows. He will say what he doesnt know and you will stop at that point. If there is information he cant or wont give you, some reason, is also trained to tell you why and thats a very important point. So if theres someone losing to the front of his says i work in a classified Current Space and of all sorts of knowledge im not allowed to tell others, thats an acceptable answer. I cant, wont tell you that because it remains classified. In cases of a Law Enforcement investigation you often are some ask about a suspect and a lawenforcement officer said on that when you give in information on that because it could jeopardize our ability to catch the suspect. Theres things you can do to maintain public trust if you put your kind of key principles to work in any problem, i put a piece out today on abc to say lets frame it around those poor principles you know it seems like an unusual emergency. It turns out that always work, so the consistency point is to the point people trying to drive home right now. Lets remember the other one. Lets remember to not make fun of peoples fears. Someone called a very early on on this and is a mentor of mine who taught me that 20 years ago and said tom, strikes me in this when you should also not make fun of people are skeptical of disinformation. Youve been working this for 15 just pick you understand the plan is based on data. This is not a kneejerk develop overnight idea that best in emergency. We developed these plans that curbed concept in 2006 in the event Bush White House when we try to apply to pandemic influenza strategy. These things have been researched. They are objective data, not just modeling, and you internalize that for 15 years. When you speak to people dont presume that their fears are unwarranted but also dont presume they should already internalize all that and make fun of their of her skepticismr slowness to absorb information. To your point about the collective knowledge one of the things we think about and look at a lot at the Digital Forensic research lab is know your source and thats a good way to guard against this disinformation or spread false information but knowing your sources source which is a really, really good way to guard against that misinformation or the more pervasive spread false information. If you dont have another group of 50 or 60 of the world need experts and will like i have put up on this one and dont always have in every of the crisis that breaks out in the world i always do people its important when you have no other barometer or other differentiator to look or some editorial function. If you can find a curated source what is a person or group of people whose professional responsibility it is to edit that, even when i put a piece out i run it through the Washington Post or the abc editorial process so that they are lawyers and editors and curious Fact Checkers to going researched every assertion that a make and make sure stands up to the test of accuracy and so forth. When i dont know what to do or who to follow, even if i see someone who is one of my peers, when youre someone like me who i tend to bias agree with our belief, i try to find it repeated in some source, some edited curious source. Talking about curated sources, or edited sources, a lot of the lowest barrier edited sources are person place a worker lisa come in the special report shows people generate think that employers are better prepared to take on to do with the continuity of operations during a pandemic threat but also a trusted source of information during a pandemic threat. And so what does that tell us and what our corporations and employers responsible in this moment . Both internal and external about this and so whats the key advice. Was let me tell you where we have been saying to our clients. It is not business as usual. But it is business. We have a fiduciary, we have a moral responsibility to keep business going as much as we can. We have said theres three kind of primary principles of this. One, unprecedented. We dont actually, were going to figure this out. Were doing the best weekend. Lets give give ourselves and give each other grace but unprecedented. Two, id rather be safe than sorry. Id rather overreact than under react and so were telling our clients that cannot and abundance of care in doing this. And three, for those who can come remote work is part of the modern workplace. Remote work is how people work. And so i think as the case of many situations like this, we are going to come out of this better and stronger in many ways. You talk about compassion. There are four sort of almost innate sensibilities that all communicators within business they do have right now, show care. Show care for your people. Show care for your client. Show care for the environment around us. Be compassionate. People are at different spaces on the continuum here. Many of us have gone from wow, i cant believe we have spent this much time talking to about, to oh, my god, how wrong was i . I . So get people grace and compassion. I think employers have extraordinary responsibility to Show Confidence. I am looking for competence from my employer. My folks are looking at competence from me. We revising all of our clients you have to Show Confidence right now. When you dont know something its okay, under any circumstances, but particularly now, its okay to not know not business as usual, but continue with the degree that we can. It seems like prudent advice not just in this moment, but is this an Inflection Point that a good time to step back and i tend to be a natural optimist, i tend to think that when things happen, they happen for a reason and we will come out of this betterment i think were going to be smarter in terms of how we Work Together. Smarter in terms of how we conduct business. I think were going to be better informed. I think were going to be more forward thinking and i think this were going to be more compassionate in terms of understanding. Everything that ive talked about as a general principal, obviously is elevated right now in terms of level of clarity and level at which were operating right now. It seems like thats a good moment to, a, heed our own words from this stage. So if youre following along at home. Accoronavirus. Use that hash tag, youll get more information first particularly twitter and the decision to any hash tag related to coronavirus or covid19, updated information from the latest sources and so if youre engaging on the internet right now and using accoronavirus youll notice c. D. C. Coronavirus. Gov comes up first, first and best practice, and in terms of from this stage admitting what we dont know or what were not yet none of us are medical officials and again, go to coronavirus. Gov or the latest and greatest medical information. Sara, young people defined as in this report in the latest report are defined as 18 to 34, which covers most of the millennials and go to gen z, some of gen z and it says that theyre turning to social media by 56 as opposed to Mainstream Media. It also seems social media is one of the least trusted sources of information, but social media platforms have made a concerted effort, twitter upgrading information from c. D. C. Facebook taking measures to do the same and google as well as on search algorithms to an extent. So the question is, social media platforms have a concerted effort to promote that objective expert information from sources like the c. D. C. Is that enough . Kind of what should we be doing to navigate that environment you see every single day in times of pandemic and general media evolution . How do we see the online spa space . Great question and im grateful that you walked us through the difference between disinformation and misinformation upfront. The difference is this, the coordinated inauthentic activity. People intentionally putting out information for discord, and there are ways to detect it, particularly now with advances in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. Whats really difficult for social platforms to navigate is misinformation, is information thats posted not through some sort of, you know, coordinated attempt to misinform people, but just a really innocent way of sharing what they believe to be true with their friends and family and its not true. And i see this as being a greater problem for the social platforms during a time of great confusion than disinformation noted on the study on coronavirus, a lot of people are turning to their friends and family right now for information and we know that so many people are posting things that arent necessarily attributed to the same types of experts that we cited because theyre not trained to cite experts the way that we are in the work forces of public government and media. So, especially with young people turning to social media, who are young people most likely to be tuning into, its their own friends and family and i think thats going to be a huge problem. I think the best thing that social platforms can do right now is make a constant effort to change their algorithm. Out of the more trusted brands and information, and the News Companies, they can be officials, so it can be something at c. D. C. , someone at the World Health Organization, it could be local Health Authorities, they need to make a conscious effort to elevate working on their algorithms. We saw two years ago, two and a half years ago facebook decided to remove some of the brands and News Companies from its news feed because it wanted more interactions between friends and family. Now might be a time to turn up the way the algorithms with trusted sources. And the last piece of advice with social platforms. Make bold choices. I know in the past, social platforms have taken on deciding which news sources they thought were credible. At this time, use your best instincts. Hire professionals, talk to the government and strong people in the Scientific Community to figure out what are the best sources to elevate and that might mean that you could aggravate one party over the political aisle for not picking their news sources. Elevate the right calls and in your algorithm. Youre speaking to a point that richard made earlier where information is typically or in the past had been kind of vertically oriented and trust had been from top down, from various specific sources, kind of less gateways into the information environment and then social media kind of made that more horizontal and more gateways into being a more valid actor in the information environment, and your advice is essentially making a strong pitch for heavy content, or heavy editing to a point that tom made earlier. How do social media do that in coordination with government and media. Do we have those kind of information path ways . Do we have the concentric circles of trust between social media as well as government and the private sector as well as media . Well, were starting to get there. We started in the wake of 2016 where we did have a crisis that social platforms recognized two things. One they needed to develop a stronger relationship with trusted sources and facebook to elevate their news content and google developed the Google News Initiative to find the quality local news and National News so we know that that relationship is getting a little bit stronger. In terms of these platforms and the governments were seeing ways theyre working together. In light of 2016, the social platforms were complaining they werent getting enough collaboration that could have been them dispersing blame and werent getting enough coordination between them and experts this Cyber Security in the government and et cetera. Now, thats never what they say. They dont of blame the government for not having that level of coordination because theyve taken great steps to build it. I think that we should feel much better about where the relationships are, theyre not yet perfect, but based off the reporting where it was after 2016 were leaps and bounds. And talking again about the the concentric circles of trust between the social media, et cetera. One of the reports from the findings showed that employers, again, are a goto source for information in the days of coronavirus and that makes sense because if you have an eighthour workday then you essentially spend a third of your existence at your working with your colleagues or interacting with your employer. But one of the interesting findings from the trust barometer, out of the 10 countries listed for service, nine of 10 of them have National Health care and so, you have two concentric sources there where you have National Health care systems with the government essentially, as well as employers who are kind of sources of information. And do we see them coordinating enough . How would you, a, advise an employer to navigate that system or communicate with the government about what they need in terms of from the Health Care System in their country . And how would you advise the government on how to address employers if the Health Care System is partly or in part or wholly natural. Ill turn to richard and lisa if you want to chime in. Part of what richard referenced and i will pull out more in our overall data that theres a perception of competency or lack of competency in the four arenas that we look at. But there is a desperate need for government and business to Work Together. Theres a need and theres an expectation for government and business to Work Together and i actually think this is the prime opportunity to showcase how working together makes a difference and its a natural expectation, its a responsibility that we have and when we are working very closely with government entities, we always have a more informed outcome. We always have a more vigorous outcome. We feel more competent about the recommendation that we are making because of that partnership. And when it doesnt happen and i think weve seen it not happen over the past week in many cases, it can be disastrous, and without being overly dramatic, lives can be lost when they dont Work Together effectively. Lisa, can i add to that . Of course. It seems to me there are two or three obvious areas where government to cooperate, one is if kids are home from school, many poor children are not going to get school lunch. I realize this maybe is more an american problem, but its a severe issue and i think its a perfect area for companies to say, okay, well step up, well offer lunch for those poor children because they deserve to be able to be fed. In addition, relief for workers who are in the travel and tourism industry, now, many of them are going to be on hiatus, laid off, whatever. Here is another opportunity for companies to step up and say, i will continue to pay workers who are at the United Center in chicago because theres no basketball or hockey and were still going to pay those employees for the games that they would have been played. And so, here again is coordination between government and business to show something positive for society. Because were in an untested waters, Uncharted Waters how long this is going to go on. Which industries its going to effect, but i think the most proximate problems are ones affecting workers, particularly in low Wage Industries of travel, tourism and also, again, these children who are going to be home schooled. So, tom, turning over to you with that kind of converse version of that question. How from government do we need to be coordinating with the private sector . That seems like to Richards Point a whole of government approach and doesnt include the stake holders in government that we would think as the first line of defense from the pandemic threat. So whats your advice there . A lot on the table here, ill see if i can go through four of them. Inan info epidemic and the first one i think is important to recognize, all though you made a valid point on the political side about our Health Care System being different so we should be careful making comparisons between our country and others. Theres a distinction, theres a difference between the Public Health care Delivery System and the system. What i mean, the Public Health system in this country is worried about a population level effect on the population of any pathogen or disease or outbreak. The Health Care Delivery system is in the trenches, doctors and nurses and their administrators that make sure they can keep the lights on and patients flowing and so forth. And historically over multiple president s, multiple generations and multiple administrations weve had a very, very difficult time marrying those two professions in our country and thats probably a more salient conversation than our health care being privatized and centralized. Id be comfortable with the standard of care around the country even though we dont have centralized system. But the Health Experts are pretty well unified. There are state Public Health officials, but taking the lead of our centralized Health Officials here with c. D. C. And with niaid with dr. Fauci. One of the things that make dr. Fauci gold, hes working both sides of these, he was a practicing medical doctor that delivered service to patients and now is at a population level looking at macro trends in our Public Health system. Hes a unique gem that we should thank as many times as possible. And something that richard said, i love richard for this, hes a solutions guy. Think about this School Debate right now its been infuriating me. We have people that are data driven, scientists, mathematicians that have come up with sciencebased advice and when they get down to it and make a shift, and out of their lanes and what about the school lunches, and the and you heard Governor Cuomo say that, im not making fun of him. Theyre hard questions and him thinking out loud in front of us as he absorbs what hes been taught and theyre not reasons not to close the School System about with respect to him theyre challenges hes to overcome. If he comes back to the advice that i want to tend to elevate this a little bit. Im a risk manager, and ive been the nations risk manager twice, what ive learned you have to explain to people how you made your decision because there are value tradeoffs and differentials between your acceptance of risk and mine so you explain to people how you reached that decision and why. They can then decide whether they agree with those tradeoffs that you baked into your recommendation. I think thats one of the keys that might be missing in this particular pandemic outbreak. People are told here is what theyre going to do. Theyre nonpharmaceutical interventions, theyre layered, targeted measures to mitigate, the phrases that we use, and hard time communicating it and data driven. We looked at 43 different cities and looked at the differentials in variation of application and there was a science, datadriven outcome and you had to do the key ones and had to do them all at the same time. One cities did three of the four and choose being like an a la carte menu didnt have the same success. We have to explain that and im not sure that weve gotten through in the cizeitgeist of todays fears and thats what i use in my course occasionally, people dont care what you know until they know that you care. So if you start off with that compassion point youll have a lot more receptive audience and fourthly and lastly, a cool point you made that i want to come back and touch on. Theres been a lot of work that went into this im gratified by and validated something i anecdotally felt. They have all kinds of data and professional and what theyve discovered a huge audience still for people who watch the shorter clip delivery of news that has to fit within the understandable constraints of television and theres a thirst, especially among the young, i think this makes sense. The thirst among the younger demographic for a longer educational piece, they dont want to watch the 11 00 news theyd like to come home at anytime or on a weekend and say, you know what . I heard there with as a development, and i have no idea what that might mean to me and what the context of that Development Might be. If theres going to my own home and listening to someone xyz and history and context and theyll gravitate toward it. And weve rolled out abc, and the younger demographic trending toward that and struck me as relevant and with what richard laid out in his findings and its gratifying. Your last question, what would you come back with the government with, the same thing i started with stay in your lane. Each one requires an expert either that explains in depth at that longer, you know, kind of on demand piece, five minutes to teach somebody, you better know what youre talking about. You cant just fudge it with a talking point, right . If youve made a decision thats complicated based on risk tradeoffs and variable risks, you have to explain that. All of these require us to stay in our lane and i occasionally watch which Health Officials start to get into economics and medical advice, every time i watch it, i cringe and it ultimately gives negative data and its a beautiful thing when youd see people staying in their lanes next to each other. Oh, yeah. And i think thats what we saw mid week when ceos met with the president and made the announcement. And that gave people again a sense of confidence and a sense of comfort that they were working together so you do well, i will do what i do well, but we should be doing this. You stay in your lane and ill stay in mine, but lets Work Together. Exactly right. And what richard did was important, he said lets not use the people, the poor kids that need lunch programs as an excuse to close the public schools, bring in the officials from private industry to solve that problem by giving resources and food and so on. There are a set of challenges and not excuses before us. And smart people that manage the properties together and use pieces of advice properly. And its a bipartisan approach over the last few administrations to say the least, right . When theres a crisis, theres a podium and it included all of the stake holders across not only the federal government, but also the media and those questions. And thats a sim bymbiotic relationship. President trump and vicepresident pence in the rose garden showed strength and wisdom and they got a lot of feedback showing the unity of effort between private and Public Sector and having the ceos there and the last point that richard delivered, they are the employers of most of the country. It helped deliver a sense of, you know, trustworthiness, i think, yes. One quick point which is that there can be a time in the media where you look to people who are supposed to be the arbiters of expertise and theyre not living up to that challenge. And its your job in the media to make sure that youre calling them out or that youre recognizing it and not elevating misinformation from an authortative source that should be and was not. And the most toxic was at the beginning of this where the Trump Administration was not being very accurate about taking this seriously. Its the job of the media of course to look to the government for having authoritative knowledge on governance, but its the source of information even if its supposed to be that authoritative source isnt, its the job and the role of the media and other institutions to recognize it, to call it out, and to find a better source. So i want to take one question from social media that i think is something specifically, a person that everybody has mentioned across this entire conversation. Professor nancy snow via email has asked, what will happen if dr. Tony fauci doesnt stay healthy. Hes arguably one of the most credible leaders on covid19 and i think its a true statement, but id like to kind of rephrase it for government, media and private sector. How do we look for more or lift up more sources that are the next tony fauci so were not totally dependent on. Doctor fauci who weve all kind of had the pleasure of working with, get on tv and explain the situation. What do we do in government where we have a number of the kind of top experts even if theyre not directly related or working on the white house complex, like how do we find the sources in government and lift them up . And then for the private sector, how do we understand exactly what we have access to and what we dont have access to . I would posit that most of the ceos in the country cant call up tony fauci right now because hes a little busy and saying tony, what should i do . Yes, were dependent on tony fauci and what we do and do without him and look for more information that i would refer to as let me say generally speaking everyone has to have a plan b here. Whats the contingency plan for something happening with dr. Fauci. What is the contingency plan for something happening, god forbid to richard. So in every branch, government, media, all leaders need to have a contingency plan. What were doing with our clients and looking at scenarios and what happens if that happens, what happens if that happens and thats got to be a basic part of everybodys planning right now. And i would i would imagine that niad and the federal government is doing the same thing. God forbid if something happens, but theres got to be a backup plan, all of us have that. And in a short period of time, dr. Redfield shared the qualities of being a doctor and somebody distinguished in the Public Health side of this divided well, maybe not divided, but separate form of our Public Health system. And Surgeon General adams, he is an absolute rock star. Now, both of them, havent been on tv as much so people will take time to put the trust theyve invested into dr. Fauci into them. But the way that we get ready for the potential of one of three of them being sick, put them on tv and warming people up to the idea and socializing them. But the answer is weve got a deep bench of people that can lead us through the Public Health specter. And one further comment i think that josh fulton and the business round table and his peers in the u. K. And other markets need to start speaking up about whats the status of jobs. Because he think i think the level of stress on employees at the moment is escalating and i think the mental part of physical illness really needs to be tam pd down. Okay, so here is the story. If youre in travel and tourism, here is your unemployment benefits. Here is whats the status is of various industries. Here is what we know. Because again, this information vacuum is leading to all sorts of rumors about bankruptcies or owners of Small Business and et cetera and i think it would be very smart for some of the big banks reiterate this week what theyre going to do in terms of extending credit. The fed has done what it can do and the private sector needs to step up and say specifically were going to extend credit terms or do something specific for Small Businesses. Include Small Businesses in supply chains. This is the time for business to lead. Thank you, richard. Over to you, how do you find the next in journalism youre creating contingency plans to this point. And every time they meet you need to develop new sources for that story so were used to it. So ill give you tips how we navigate this how we can be helpful for leaders in government, business or even people at home. I always ask sources, how do you know that . Its one of the simplest questions, but they should be able to point you to Credible Data or credible sources there. And if they can put you through credible sources there, give that person a call and develop what i like to call a snowballing effect of experts around that one person. And youll begin to map out how the person knows what they know and with that map you have your contingency plan. So it just comes down to asking that simple question time and time again. How do you know that . And maybe follow up with who can i call that you trust . That can help me get the access. The source isnt going to kind of ding you for that, for asking for more sources, right . Thats kind of expected in terms of searching out for the information thats going to be best for your audience because youre liable to your audience. If we were talking about criminal investigations here and i would say, how do you know that . And the source would say, i cant give up the identity of the person, thats the situation. Right now, this is a little bit different. I think that everyones trying to solve the exact same problem and so theyre not coming across that. Lets say they were, look, i cant tell you where i got that data, but its in the Government Data base. And then its my job not to use that data until i find the source. You can never just take someones word for it. You have to always make that followup call and always confirm when that person says this is how i know it, confirm that. And like the media trends do. Well go with our last question, back to richard. Richard, what is the with the special report of the barometer on coronavirus, covid19, what is the top finding that you want this audience to take away about trust that weve learned to a point that everybody has made here today about the data . What do we know from the data that weve been that edelman has been looking at during the survey time, whats the one thing that that data shows us that we should all take away from this conversation . The private sector has to contribute in a substantial way to the information flow. Its not sufficient to have information any longer just from media or from the Public Sector. Theres enough sense of of the Public Sector or of information, misinformation in media particularly from social media. Therefore, because the most trusted institution is my employer, my employer has to speak up every day, updating the company web presence with whats happening in the business, whats happening in the community, and what the company is actually doing to improve the situation. And so it is an impressionist painting. It is the facts based on government, media and the private sector, all three contributing to the better facts and therefore, better decisions. Ill trust you on that. Thank you. For those of you that have joined while wfh working from ho home, and thank you for those that joined us for the conversation in person from an appropriate scans, i prech appreciate your time today. Thanks for everybody online again engaging on accoronavirus. The last thing that well say today as we wrap up this conversation is look out for those trusted sources of information. Doublecheck and verify at all times and thats how were going to navigate this infodemick. And well give a last plug to one of the best sciencebased sources we know of thats coronavirus. Gov, updated consistently by the centers for Disease Control and again, thank you for joining us today. Thank you. [applaus [applause]. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] its easy to follow the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak at cspan. Org coronavirus. Track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps and charts. Watch briefings and hearings with Public Health specialists, anytime unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus. The White House Coronavirus task force headed by vicepresident mike pence will hold a briefing today. Well have live coverage this afternoon at 3 30 eastern on csp cspan online at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. This week were featuring book tv programs, showcasing whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonights theme, pandemics begins with discussions from the brooklyn book festival, featuring author carl zimmer, and the mic microbes within us d human dangers, Jeremy Browns book, influenza, a history of flu pandemic. Starting tonight at 8 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. The u. S. Comptroller general testified on the annual report on the nations fiscal house and discussed transparency, the debt and deficits and budgeting for emergency preparedness. This is an hour and 15 minutes