Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion On Coronavirus Public Trust In Government 20240713

Weekly caucus meetings. Republicans are meeting with treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin this afternoon about the coronavirus response. We expect to hear Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell address reporters at 2 p. M. Eastern. The senate will gavel back in at 2 15 eastern and, of course, well have live coverage here on cspan2. Up next, a conversation on the coronavirus pan dem sick and public trust in pandemic and public trust in government. We hear from this forum hosted by the Atlantic Council. Good morning. This is fred kemp from the Atlantic Council, and thank you for tuning into this timely, unfortunately timely conversation on Public Trust Institutions and the coronavirus epidemic. First of all, i want to thank ours. Speakers who are here tody and everyone whos joined us online whos 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. Keep ourselves safe, our staff safe, our communities safe. But at the same time, we have to rally our community globally, transatlanticly and at home to take on the challenge of the none of us have seen in our lifetimes. Though we do not have you here in the room, we encourage you to engage in our discussion. Please use the hashtag ac coronavirus throughout this event to comment and ask questions. Our team is going to be monitoring your questions and passing them to the moderator so we can do this as much as possible as an interactive, very interactive event. And youre going to get moree. F this sort of thing from the Atlantic Council. Were going to be even more intensive in this period taking on this challenge, as we should be, under our mission of working together with our friends and partners to shape the future. The panel of experts was called together by three of the Atlantic Council perhaps, the scowcroft council and the adrian r. Rockefeller resilience center. At the Atlantic Council, were working rapidly to respond to provide all of you as much understanding as we can realtime. But at the same time, to provide policy ideas, ideas of how we can collaborate better across the world is and across the atlantic. We find ourselves bracing for major gee geo political and geoeconomic impact as covid19s spread is causing chaos, confusion around the globe but alsoso the beginnings of common cause. What we know already is that the coronavirus has reached some 130 countries, latest is 6,518 deaths, 1 sorry, 169,700 cases, and in the United States it could be as many. As 80 deats now. The finishing ts web site has 81 ft. What we know is the information including disinformation 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, with we must all turn to facts first. As always, the words we use matter. The who update their assessment of can covid19 to a pandemic. The president of the United States called for a national emergency. There is reason the term viral applies to both. The spread of false information about pandemic threats is creating confusion and panic and making it harder to mount a Public Health response. International experts are necessary for overall understanding of the coronavirus, this moment also underscores the importance and current deterioration of hyperlocal information environments whether its friends and neighbors or local officials in media which people turn to when trying to decide whether its safe to walk down the streetn or go to the grocery store. Thisfe weekend anthony fauci, te director of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases, said with outbreaks such as this we are never where we think we are. We in the Atlantic Council are assuming that the numbers today and the spread thats already happened today, we wont even know about until 16 days from now. And thats the kind of precautions we need to take. Were not only going to see a spread, a real spread, were also going to see a spread that has already taken place, but were just catching up with it because of more testing kits. So as you said, if you think youre in line, this is from fauci, if you think youre in line with the outbreak, youre already three weeks behind it. So youve got to be almost overreacting a bit to keep up with it, and thats why we expect more announcements in the coming hours of precautions that people will be instructed to take in the United States. And elsewhere. What were learning in realtime is a proactive and this is a really important line proactive countries, societies and individuals to best. They are performing better than the reactive ones. Governments that engage in truth telling are heading off dangers faster than those who obfuscate and delay. And as the number of confirmed cases rises, individuals and communities are increasingly required to make judgments about the trustworthiness of institutions andmm information. In the face of this uncertainty, today weve 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 and the media should be doing to gain public trust. Thats the keyword right now, is trust. Thank you once again for joining us for this timely conversation. Im going to happened it over to my colleague, the director and managing editor of the Digital Research lab. Hell be moderating todays discussion. I also wont be introducing the panelists, but i do want to give great warm thanks to my friend richard emelin in new york whos going to give us some interesting information from some work, richard is in the city that never sleeps but now is shutting down its restaurants and bars. Whoever thought wed see that, richard . Let me pass to graham to kick us off. Thankba you, graham. Hi, im the director and managing editor of do the Digital Press research lab. Id likend to start by echoing freds remarks and thank all of you for joining on zoom, youtube and any other platform. If youre figuring out fsh for the first time, id also like to give you a warm welcome. Though you are not in the room with us, wed love your engagement and questions. Please use the hashtag ac coronavirus. If youre tuning in through zoom, please ask your question on chat. If youre tubing in on facebook tuning in on facebook, leave your questions on the comment sec, and were monitoring all of those channels, and well with taking questions here at the end of the conversation. This conversation is happening at a critical time, and were learning more about this Global Pandemic by the minute. The conversation about objective this conversation in particular is about public trust which is a collective challenging that involves government and media and the private sector. Were here today joined by folks that have experience in all of those things. Directly on my left im joined at an appropriate distance by lisa ross, edelmans chief operating officer, tom bosser who serves as the president s Homeland Security adviser and is Current National security analyst at abc, and Sarah Fischer who is the media reporter at axios and the author of the weekly axios media newsletters, and joining us Via Video Conference again is Richard Edelman, ceo of edelman, who is launching a special report today on the 2020 Edelman Trust barometer specifically on coronavirus. Now, to begin this conversation, ill fake moderators ill take moderators progress tuf. First and foremost, the first andd only best practice is alwas referring back to the latest information. If you havent already, please visit coronavirus. Gov, its a web site thats updated on a continue toous basis by the centers for disease control. Second, here at the Atlantic Council we use certain terms and we dont use other terms. We dont use the term fake news. Turns out thats not a particularly Good Research term, it isnt objective and [inaudible] what we do use the term misinformation which we define as the spread of false information without intent, meaning its not deliberate. We also use the term disinformation which is the spread of false information with intent. Finish in this moment [inaudible] were seeing a lot of both. And so third, as an 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. So id like to start this conversation by m kicking it ovr to richard who will go over some of the key findings from in this morning. Richard, over to you. Thanks, graham. So weve been doing studies of trust for the past 20 years, and there are important trend lines to look at which is specifically that trust in government and trust in media are at quite low ebb. 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 at record levels. In fact, in some countries as much as 50 points. Forked media, major media has maintained its position, but the overall rank in media trust has declined because of social media which is now trusted in the low 20s in western developed markets, democracies. And so we go into this crisis understanding that the relative position of institutions has changed. [inaudible] business is the most trusted followed shortly thereafter by ngos and the government and media are at a very low ebb. What this has caused is a real and very important change in the way in which trust is conferred. Historically, trust was from the top down, vertical. About ten years ago with the rise of facebook and other social platforms, trust became horizontal, it went peertopeer x. In the last two years, trust has moved local. The most trusted institution in the world today is is my employer. Twenty points higher than a normal business and thirty points or more higher than government or media. And what that means is that theres new expectations of the corporation that ceos are expected to speak up on issues of the c day. And there is no more important issue of the day than coronavirus. And so this study was undertaken literally ten days ago because we were hearing about info demics. How bad was it, who were people believing, how were they getting their information. We thought this was of vital important to understand what role there could be for the private sector in supplementing that of the Public Sector and the media. So we went out to ten countries in the last week, europe, the u. S. , a couple countries in asia korea and japan south africa, etc. And what we have found is deeply important. Specifically, that the most credible source of information is actually my employer. Thirteen points higher than 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, who, etc. The most critical spokespeople are scientists, cdc and who 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 contacts. 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, you know, vacation or paid leave or whats happening in terms of your employee force or what your policies are on, you know, benefits. But they 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 concern in our study about the qualification of the discussion. More than 60 of people believe somehow that some of this is being created by the politics of the time. That is a deeply important problem. We must stomp that out. This must not be seen as good for one party or another. It is whats good for society. Further, i want to reit it rate that reiterate that theres a clear sense that my employer is better prepared than my country, 14 points difference between my employer and my country. And so again, the role of business in communicating quality information on a frequent basis through scientists and other experts cannot be more clearly stated in this study. So, again, the information context is that, yes, we want information from health authorities, but its not sufficient. Were not sure that its so. And moreover, were not sure that what were getting from mainstreamot media is sufficien. We deeply distrust social media. Onethird of people told us specifically anything they see in social media 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 suchch as scientists and expert. Thank you. Thank you very much, richard. Is and for our panelists, for your first intervention what im going to ask you to do is mention least one source of information that youve found incredibly useful or that youve learned something from or is objective about covid19. So for your first intervention, make sure to plug one source of information. First question is to sarah rah. In the report respondents shared that they are getting most of their information about virus from major media organizations over National Government sources, Global Health organizations or National Health Authority Like the cdc. But it also found that respondents trust journalists the least to tell the truth about the virus. So how do you see news organizations like yours dealing with that kind of variance between those two findings . Absolutely. I think these times of crises, especially ones that encounter numbers or encounter total number off cases that fluctuate over time, one thing that people are turning to from news organizations is really strong Data Visualization. The things that are going viral on social media are charts that are being produced by the Washington Post and vox media. Its not the same, however, as someone trusting a report by a certain author or reporter. Now is the time when news organizations need to bring authority of the organization above the authority of the journalists with one exception, if you have really strong subject Matter Experts within your walls. So, for example, it might make sense to elevate, if youre the New York Times who their top science reporter has been all over the news, it might make season sense to elevate him to talk about cases, how theyve spread. In other cases, your top wall street reporter on how the markets are reacting. But otherwise i think the pieces that have done really well that the people really trust are the pieces that are sans bylines or not bylines first, but theyre really graphicheavy, and they help people understand the disease more so so than they help [inaudible] so one of the ways by which journalists writ large can kind of get around that trust issue is to make sure that theyre listing on sources that, a, theyre either covering or that they have inhouse to build more concentric circles of trust, correct . Yes. And to use day as much as you possibly can data. News organizations are quell e end quippedded to use well equipped to use really strong graphics. I cant stress enough, the really powerful arbiters of truth and quality information. And you mentioned two or three sources specifically of good information. You mentioned the Data Visualization of the Washington Post that essentially shows projections on how to flatten the curve as well as the work that vox has done. Are there any other very good sources of information to include the media trends newsletter . Yes. Well, i think one source of information thats not necessarily a media company, if you will, is is really continue to check in with the governments web site. I think thats something youre going to hear about from to our other panelists, but the information that youre getting from the World Health Organization, yourfr local healh authorities is the other area i would point people for strong quality information around this virus. Thankal you. So markets arent the only indicator, but weve seen when the overall federal government commune candidates policy like declaringhe a national emergenc, markets respond fairly positive to that amount of certainty. But weve also seen whenever President Trump personally communicates via twitter, the markets tend to respond negatively. So take us back into your old role which, for those of you who dont know, in a Basement Office that has 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, but how to respond and navigate this one . Okay, so thank you to Richard Edelman for putting this piece out, because this report is based on data, and people are gravitating towards data. If theyre not, they should be. This isnt richards opinion, and its important to remember that. This is richards daydriven conclusion datadriven conclusion. I i had the benefit of being in the confluence of two of those categories that richard just laid out. 50 or 60 of my colleagues that ive worked with in the last 15 years are also highly respected academic people with credentials. Ive learned from them, ive mentored some of them, theyve mentored me. Theyre the worlds leading epidemiologists and the heads of Health Departments at various state and local communities, major universities, so ive had this really interesting opportunity in this particular pandemic outbreak to have each of them almost working for each other, including myself. So ive got graphics, data and analysis by people that are literally the worlds best recognized in their field. So, you know, it strikes me that as you referenced government web sites, government authorities, thats a very important point to hammer home. But what id do flip your give thearound and president ad vice and all the people who work want president , and i would caution them against a number of things. One of them is mission creep. Each of us on this eking mail chain thatai ive been on, emal chain that ive been on constantly remind one another in a real kind of helpful reminder way to stay in our lane. So when i repeat something that is medical in the nature, a derivation of some analytic science, i say this is what ive been told by experts in the field, its not my back of the envelope math,he if that makes sense. So the notion here of telling the president what to do, you dont tell the president. You advise him, and there are key principles that i would advise any leader, and i do this frequently and i i think so does richard. You should tell people what you know, you should avoid telling them what you dont know. And in that category, you should act a knowledge uncertainty if youre asked a question you dont know the answerr to. When i tell people to not tell others what they dont know, it seems like a double negative. You should also acknowledge areas of uncertainty, and that public trust will be with you throughout the if the process if you stick to that. I think this president has come around at delivering not only action, but hes kind of moved into manager thats not [inaudible] public trust, hes starting to fore shad toe the future. Maintain public trust and teach the people that are in all walks of life. You often get, unfortunately after crimes or shootings, you see this gaggle or reporters around an officer thats trained to be a Public Affairs officer. Hell say what he nose, helling say what he doesnt know, and hell stop at that point. If there is information he cant you for some reason, hes also trained to tell you why, and thats a very important point. And theres somebody listening to this right now saying i work in a classified government space, and i have all sorts of knowledge that s im not allowed to tell others, thats a perfectly acceptable answer, cits classifieded. In cases of a Law Enforcement investigation, you often hear someone ask about a suspect, and the officer say im not going to give you information because it could generaltize our ability to catch that jeopardize our ability to catch that suspect. You can put key principles to work in any problem. Ie put a piece out today on ark bc to say lets frame it around those coree principles. It turns out they always work with, they always apply, and theyre key. So, you know, the consistency point is the point that people are trying to drive home right now. Lets remember the other one. Lets remember to not [inaudible] on peoples fears. Someone called me very early on, a mentor of mine, and said it streaks my in this strikeses me that you should not make fun of the people who are skeptical of information. Youve been working on this for 15 years, you understand the plan is based on data, this nota kneejerk, developed overnight idea, we developed that plan and curve concept in 2006. Again, the Bush White House when we tried to apply it to a pandemic strategy. So to these things have been researched. Theres objective data, not just modeling some previous experiences. And we have internalized that for 15 years. So when you speak to people, dont presume their fears are unwarranted or that they should d have already internalized that or their slowness to absorb. Is so those would be the key principlese id be giving to ts president and everyone. To your point, one of the things is that [inaudible] research lab is, a, know your source. And thats a good way to guard against disinformation, that deliberate spread of false information. But also knowing your sources source which is a really, really good way the guard against that misinformation or that more passive, that more pervasive spread. If you dont happen to have a group of 50 or 60 world experts in the field like i happen to have on this one and dont always have on every other crisis, i always tell people its important when you have no other barometer or differentiator to look for some editorial function. So so if you can find a curated source whether its a person or group of people whose professional responsibility it is to edit that piece, even when i put a piece out, i run it through the Washington Post or the abc editorial process. They have lawyers and editors and curious Fact Checkers to go and research every assertion i make and make sure it stands up to the test of act rahs i and so forth. So when i dont know what to do or two to follow who to follow, even if i i see one of my peers, i try the find it repeat in some t source, in some edited, curatedded source. Talking about curatedded sources or edited sources, a lot of the kind of lowest edited [inaudible] it shows that people generally think their employers are better prepared to kind of, a, teal with the continuity of operations during [inaudible] but alsons as, b, a trusted soue of information during a pandemic threat. And sost whats the best, what e employers responsibilities in this moment . Obviously, edelman ad vised companies on how to advices companies how to communicate both externally and internally. Whats the key advice . Let me tell you what weve been saying to our clients. It is not business as usual but it is business. And we have a fiduciary, we have a moral respondent to keep business going as much as we can. So 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 we can, so lets give ourselves and each other grace. But unprecedented. Two, id rather be safe than sorry. Raid rather overreact that underreact. And so were telling our clients to have an abundance of care in doing this. And, three, for those who can, the most work is the heart of remote work is the heart of the modern workplace. Remote work is how people work. So i think in the case of many situations like this, were going to come out of this better and stronger in many ways. And you talked about [inaudible] there are four sort of almost innate sense abouts that all communicators within business need to have right now. Show care. Show care for your people, show care for your clients, 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 ive spent this much time talking about it to, oh, my god, how wrong was it . So give people grace and compassion. I think employers have a ap extraordinary responsibility to show competence. I amth looking for competence fm my employer, my folks are looking for competence from me. We are advising all of our clients you have to show competence right now. People are not only worried about their health, theyre worried about the economy, their jobs, whats going to happen. We were talking about the impact that this could have. And employers have a respondent to not only responsibility to not only provide for care, but also to know that people are worried about their future. And then the last piece, again, going back to show compassion but very clear on how you are communicating and recognize if you know what youre saying, say it. When you dont know something, its okay under any circumstances but particularly now, its okay to not know. But not business as usual, but you do have to continue business to the tree that we can. To the degree that we can. It seems thats not just in this moment, but so is this anan Inflection Point that a good [inaudible] is to take a step back is and see finish. Yeah. I ten to be a natural optimist. When things happen, they happen for a reason, and we will come out this better. I think were going to be smarter in terms of how we Work Together. I think were going to be 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 were going to be more compassionate in w terms of understanding. So everything, everything that ive talked about as a general principle, obviously, its elevated right now in terms of people meeting this level needing this level of clarity. And, again, i keep going back to thisoi level of grace where we e operating right now. Thank you. It seems hike thats a good moment to, a, heed our own words from this stage. And so if youre following along at home, please engage with us on social media using hashtag ac coronavirus. Youll notice that if you use that hashtag, youll get more information first rather than all end the engagement on that hashtag. Twitter has made the decision to hashtag related to coronavirus or covid19 upgrade objective information from the late scientific sources. So if you are engaging on the internet right now and using hashtag ac coronavirus, youll also notice that the cdc comes up first which is a first and practice, and in terms of from this stage vetting what we dont know or what were kind of not the experts in, none of us are medical officials. Again, go to coronavirusdot governor for the latest. Gov for the latest medical information. Sara, young people in this report, in the latest trust report are defined at 1834 which covers most of the millennials and a good amount of genz, some of them, and it says that theyre turning to social media by 56 as opposed to Mainstream Media. It also says social media is one of the least trusted sources of information, but platforms have made a concerted effort much to the point about twitter upgrading information, facebook taking measures, google as well as on search algorithms. So the question is social media platforms are become, have kind of had this concerted effort to promote that objective expert information from sources but is that enough, kind of what should we be doing in that online environment . You see this every single day in times of pandemics and in times of just kind of media evolution. How do we see the online space as it pertains to the virus . Yes, great question. And im really grateful that you walked through the difference between disinformation and misinformation up front. And the reason is this social media platforms, coordinated activity, people who are intentionally putting out disinformation to create confusion can be difficult to detect, but there are a lot of symptoms and ways you can detect it, particularly now with advances in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. Its really difficult for social platforms to navigate misinformation. And misinformation thats posted not for some sort of coordinated [inaudible] 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 being a greater problem for the social platforms during a time of great confusion potentially than disinformation. Note in the Edelman Trust barometer study on coronavirus, a lot of people are looking to their friends and family right now for information. We know that so many people are posting things that arent necessarily attributed to the same types of experts that we cite because theyre not train by experts the way that we are in the professional work forces of Public Relations and government and media. And so especially when young people turn to social media, who are young people most likely to be tuning in to . Its their own friends and family, and i think thats going to to be a huge problem. I think the best thing that social platforms can do right now is make a constant the effort to change their algorithms, elevate more [inaudible] information. And those types of companies, they can be officials, so they could be someone like dr. Anthony fauci or someone at [inaudible] [audio difficulty] we saw two years ago facebook to, you know, remove some of the brands and news now you have time to turn up the way that your algorithms [inaudible] and my last piece is for those social platforms is make bold [inaudible] i know in the past social platforms have taken a lot of heat for deciding which news thought were credible. At this time use your best instincts. Hire professionals. Talk to thees government and really strong people in the scientist community to figure out what are the best sources to elevate. And that might mean that you could aggregate a Political Party on one side of the aisle over the other. Forgetro about the political bis that you might be taking right now. Make the right call, elevate the right sources and make sure its reflected in your algorithms. So youre speaking to a point that richard made earlier where information typically or in the past has been topdown from various sources, less gateways into the information environment, and then social media kind of made that more horizontal, more gateways into being a more valid actor in the information environment. And yourid advice is essentially make that a strong pitch for heavy editing to a point that tom made earlier. How do social Media Companies do that in coordination with government and with media . Do we have those kind of information those concentric circles of trust between the government, private sector and media . Were starting to get there. Social platforms recognize two things. One, they need to develop a stronger relationship with trusted publishers and figure out ways that they can elevate their content. [inaudible] so youve seen google develop the Google News Initiative to fund quality local news and national news. So we know that that relationship is getting a little bit stronger. Were also seeing ways that theyre working together. In light of 2016, the social platforms were complaining that they werent getting enough collaboration, and granted that could have been them dis dispersing blame. They dont blame the government for not having that level of coordination because theyve taken great steps to build it. I think we should feel much better about what those relationships are. Theyre not yet perfect, but based on where it was after 2016, we are leaps and bounds better. In talking about, again, the concentric circles of trust between the private sector and between social Media Companies, etc. 9, one of the reports and findings shows, again, that employers are a goto source. If you have an 8hour work day, you essentially spend a third of your existencece working with yr colleagues or interacting with your employer. But one to have interesting feetings of the interesting findings from the trust barometer, out of the ten countries listed or surveyed, nine or ten of them are National Health care. Is and so you have two cop centric sources where you have National Health care systems with the government, or essentially, as well as employers who have sources of information. And do we see them coordinating enough . How would you, a, advise an employerer to navigate that sysm or communicate with the government in t terms of what ty need, and how would you advise the government on how to address ployers if the Health Care System is either partly or, in part or wholly national . Ill tush to lisa turn to lisa as well as richard if you want to chime in from new york. Part of what richard referenced, and i pull out a little bit more, was in our overall data that there is a perception of we e ten i or lack of competency in the four leans 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. 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 withh government entities, we always have a more informeded outcome, we feel confident about the recommendations 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 could be disastrous. And without being overly dramatic, lives can be lost when they dont Work Together effectively. Can i add to that . Of course. It seems to me there are two obvious [inaudible] government needs tool cooperate. So one is if kids are home from school, poor children are not going to get school lunch. I realize this is 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 children because they deserve to be able to be fed. In addition, relief for workers towho are in the travel and if tourism industry. You know, many of them are going to be on hiatus, laid off, whatever. Heres another opportunity for companies to step up and say i will continue to pay workers who are at the United Center in chicago because this is no basketball or hockey, 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 untested waters, unchartered waters about how long this is goingwh to go , which industries its going to affect. And i think the most proximate problems are ones affecting workers particularly in low wage industries,al travel, tourism ad also, again, these children who are going to be home schooled. So turning over to you with a converse version of that question, how in government do we need to be coordinating with the private sector . To richards point, he doesnt necessarily include the stakeholders in government that we would traditionally think of as the first line of defense [inaudible] department of education or whoever or else. Whats your advice . Well, theres a lot on the table here, and lets see if we can go through its an infodemic. [laughter] the first one, i think, is important to recognize because although you made a valid point, differing opinion on both sides about our Health Care System being different so that we should be careful to make comparisons between our countrys Health Care Performance and others. Its also an important distinction to make that theres a difference between the Health Care Delivery system and the Public Health system system. Now, that might sound a little e esoteric to thewh listener, so t me give you a sense of what i mean. Worried about a ala population level effect on the population of any [inaudible] or outbreak. The Health Care Delivery system is the inin the trenches doctors and nurses and their administrators that make sure they can keep the lights on. Theyre a different. System. Historically over multiple president s, multiple generations and multiple administrations weve had a very, very difficult timele marrying those two pronegativeses inle our country. And that professions in our country. G and thats probably a more salient conversation for this outbreak today than our Health Care System being privatized and decentralized. In fact, id be very comfortable with the professional standard of care and delivery level in mostst hospitals around this country even though we dont have a centralized Health Care System. But the Public Health set of experts in this country are actually pretty well unified. There are state Public Health officials, but they are very much taking the lead of our cdc and naid with dr. Fauci. This little alchemy makes dr. Fauci, he was a practicing medical there that delivered service to patients and now is at a population level of macro trends. Hes a unique gem that we should treasure. I love richard because a solutions guy. So think about this School Debate right now. Its been infuriating me. We have people that are datadriven, scientists, mathematicians that have come up with all sorts of great sciencebased advice, andt when youoo get right down to it, they make a shift and start saying, well, what about the school lunch, and what about the destruction to our community and what about the kids and the people we heard governor cuomoan saying that the other d. He actually asked a lot of good questions, and theyre really hard problems to solve, but theyre him thinking out loud in front of us as he absorbs what hes been taught, and theyre not reasons to not close the school system. Theyre challenges that he needs to overcome. So it comes back to the advice, i want to elevate this a little bit. You know, im a risk manager. Ive been the nations risk manager twice, and what ive learned is you have to explain to peopleea how you made your decision because there are the value judgments and tradeoffs andof risk appetite, you know, differentials between your acceptance of risk and might be. And to if you explain to people how you reached that decision andey 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 heres what were going to do, theyre nonfarm suiting call interveptions, targeted interventions. Were having a hard time communicating them, but theyre datadriven. We looked at 43 different cities, we looked at all the differentials in timing and variation of their application, and there was actual scientific, datadriven outcome where you had to do the key ones all at the sameme time. One city that did three of the four didnt have the same success. And so we have tried to explain that, but im not sure if weve gotten that through as the zeitgeist of today fear, and they dont have time to think about it. So im really struck by something that lisa said, because one to have little, you know, catch phrases i used in few Crisis Communications course that ill teach 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 resentoff audience. You mate receptive audience. Theres a lot of work that we do thats really gratifying. I kind of validated something that i [inaudible] the notion that they went out and polled people, certain demographics. They had all this data, and that what they discovered is theres a huge audience for people to watch a shorter clip of a delivery of news. And they to a really nice job of that. But especially forke some reason among the young, i think this makes sense, our younger demographic for a longer, more educational piece and in an ondemand fashion. They dont want to have to come and watch it on the 11 00 news. Theyd like to come home at any time or look on a weekend and say, you know what . I heard there was a development in iraq. I dont want to admit to anybody that i have no idea what the context of that Development Might be. If there was a source for me to ndgo somewhere in the pryce of y own home privacy and listen to a government because of x, y and z history, you know, gravitate to it. Of course, weve rerolled out abc live platform. I love it. I get to go on and on, and i get five minutes instead of one. But the idea of the younger demographic trending toward that and the older demographic not struckck me as relevant, and its completely what richard just laid out in his findings on trust. Your last question was what would you come back to government with, with the same thing i started with, stay in your lane. Each one of those things requires an expert to either explain in depth at that longer, you know, ondemand piece if minutes to teach somebody, you better know what youre talking about. Po you cant just fudge it with talkingte points. If youve made a decision thats complicated based on threat and vulnerability consequence tradeoffs, you better explain to people how you came to that decision. So all ofan these things require us to stay in our lane. And i kind of watch occasionally Public Health officials start to get boo economics, and then i start to watch economists delivering medical advice, and i cringe. [inaudible] the beautiful thing when you see people staying in their lane next to each other. Oh, yeah. And i think thats what we saw this week when ceos stood with the president and made the announcement. Soof that gave people a sense, againing of confidence, and that gave people au sense of comfort that they were working together. So you do what you do well, i will do what i do well, you stay in your lane, im going to stay in mine, but lets Work Together. Thats exactly right. Richard didnt say lets use the people, the poor kids that need food from the lunch programs as an excuse not to close the schools. He said t bring together all the officials from private industry to solveod that problem by givig resources and, you know, food and so on. So i think that theres a set of challenges, not a set of excuses for it. And i think smart people that manage all these properties together and use these pieces of advice properly [inaudible] well, and thats been a bipartisan approach over the last few administrations, to say the least, right . When there is a crisis, theres a podium, and it includes all of the stakeholders across not only thee federal government, but alo media in the room asking questions. And thats a symbiotic relationship that makes a lot of sense. President trump and Vice President pence went to the rose garden, they showed some strength with a plan, they showed some wisdom. But what they got a lot of feedbackd on was also showing e unity off effort between private and Public Sector, having all the ceos there. They are the employers of most of the country. It really helped deliver a sense of, you know, trust. Yeah. Can i make one quick point, there can be a time in the media when 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 andnd not elevatg misinformation from a source that should be a source but just is not. And the most perfect example was at the beginning of this crisis when, obviously, the Trump Administration was not being very accurate about taking this seriously. Like, its the job of the media, of course, to look to the government for having authoritative knowledge on governance, but as a source of information even if its supposed to be that authoritative source, is it . 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. What will happen if dr. Fauci does not stay healthy . Hes argued lee while most credible leaders on covid19 and is seemingly irreplaceable whice if we can all agree is a true statement but id like to rephrase it for government, media and the private sector faat how do we look for more sources that are the next dr. Fauci so were not totally dependent on dr. Fauci who i have had the pleasure of working with but who will get on the tv and excite the situation and what we do where we have a number of the top experts even if they are not directly related or working on the white house complex, how do we find those sources in government . And 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 [inaudible] and say tony, what should i do . So yes were dependent on dr. Fauci but how do look for more sources of information that i would refer to as [inaudible] . Generally speaking everyone has to have a plan b here. What is the contingency plan for something happening with dr. Fauci . What is the contingency plan for something happening, god forbid, to richard. In every branch whether it is government, media, all leaders need to have a contingency plan. Again, what we are doing is a lot of science and in our own company were looking at what happens if this happens or that happens, different scenarios, that has to be a basic part of everyones planning right now. I would imagine that naiad and the federal government is doing the same thing. God forbid something happens but we all have to have a backup plan. In a shorter period of time they also share this quality of being a doctor and distinguished b the Public Health side of this divided or maybe not divided but separate form of our Public Health system. Surgeon general adams is an absolute rock star. Both of them having been on tv as much so people will take time to put trust that theyve invested in dr. Fauci into them but i think the way we get ready for one of the three of them being sick as we put all them on tv more frequently to warming people up to the idea but the answer there is weve got a really a deep bench that can lead us through. I think [inaudible] [audio difficulties] is escalating. I think this mental part of physical illness really needs to be tamped down. Here is the story. If you are travel and tourism here is your benefits and here is what the status is of various industries and here is what we know because againinin this information back is leading to all sorts of murmurs about bankruptcies or elders of Small Businesses and. [audio difficulties] the fed has done what it can do but i think again, private sector needs to step up and say specifically we will extend credit terms or improve or doud something specific for small business. This is a time for business to lead. Thank you. Sarah, over to you. How do you find this . In journalism theyre always crating contingency plans. Every time the story moves you have to develop new sources so we are used to it but i will give you tips to how we navigate this that could be helpful for other leaders in government, business or even people at home. I always ask sources how do you know that . Is a simple question but they should point you to Credible Data and if they can point due to a credible source they can develop, what i call, an alliance of experts all around that one person and you can map out how this person knows that they know and with that map you have your contingency plan. It comes down to action asking that simple question time and time again. How do you know that a followup with who do you call that i can trust that can give me the answer . But a source wont xing you for that and that is inflected in terms of searching out the information that will be best for your audience because your reliable. Were talking about crimina criminal i would say how do you know that . Cant give up the identityay. [audio difficulties] everything is trying to solve the exact same problem and so theyre not come across that but i cant tell you where i got that data butso its from a government database and that is my job to not use that they do until i find the source. You can never just take someones word for it. You have to always make that followup call to confirm this is how i know it. Thats why you go to securita newsletter. We will go with the last question. Richard, what is the special report of the trust barometer on coronavirus, covid19, what is the top findings that you want this body to take away about trust that we have learned to a point that everybody has made here today about the data . What do we know from the data that we have been, edelman, has been looking at over this period of survey time and what is the one thing that data shows up that we should all take away . [audio difficulties]e [audio difficulties] my employer has to speak up every day updating the company web presence with what is happening in the business and what is happening in the community and what the company is doing to improve this situation. It is an impressionist painting. It is the fact based on government, media and the private sector, all three contributing to the better set of facts and therefore the better decisions. I will trust you on that. Thank you. For those of you that have joined working from home thank you so much,. For all those that have joined us for the conversation and from an appropriate distance, i very much appreciate your time today. Thanks everyone online, or engaging on that print the last thing we will say today as we wrap up this conversation ise again, look out for those o trusted sources of information, double check, verify at all times and that is how we will navigate this. We will give one last plug to one of the best, most updated science tests, sources we know that is coronavirus. Gov. Updated and again, thank you for joining us. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]