Over the past 20 years, The Simon Wiesenthal Center has partnered with our clients to educate on the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and has empowered companies to stand up for human rights and stand against hatred.
Last night, I humbly accepted their International Leadership Award, together with fellow honorees U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Steven and Janice Hefter.
It was an evening to reflect on Simon Wiesenthal’s legacy, but also a recognition of just how much there is left to do in the fight for truth on an increasingly hostile battlefield.
As a storyteller, whose life’s work is grounded in reverence of the power of story, I know that the strongest stories are told by an orchestra of trusted voices. No place is that more clear than in spreading the story of history – and ensuring that truth and learning continue to emerge over time.
The vision, world-class leadership and unstinting ethics of Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Wiesenthal Center, are as important as ever to tell the Holocaust’s story, shine a light on the rising violence against Jews, and stamp down anti-Semitism worldwide.
But we need to do more in the face of an imploding mainstream media environment.
Over the past 10 years, newsroom employment in the U.S. is down from 300,000 to 190,000 and nearly 700 newspapers have shut down. But it’s not just here; Australia’s Fairfax media announced last month that The Sydney Morning Herald may halt weekday print publication completely.
Social media, especially Facebook, is the news platform for readers. Search has changed the pecking order of media influence, and the winners are new platforms featuring charged headlines and plentiful video, such as Business Insider, BuzzFeed and Vice.
Who decides what’s news at Facebook? Not a human. An algorithm, plucking “news” from what has been most shared on the platform. It’s not surprising that three days after Facebook switched from humans to machines, Facebook’s algorithm forced a video of a man engaging in lewd activity with a McChicken sandwich onto the trending news feed. Within hours, the video went viral—not good for McDonald’s, not good for anyone who wishes they could un-see the video.
Without a human filter, so-called trending news stories are more likely to be about stupid pet tricks than they are about global geo-politics. Trolls, who scour the Internet like bullies sniffing for weakness, exploit the anonymity of social media to push a hate agenda and urge others to follow. Their singular goal is to push an ideological agenda by targeting women, and racial or religious minorities, often escalating the hateful posts to a level that incites violence. New York Times Deputy Washington Editor Jonathan Weisman left his 35,000 Twitter followers behind earlier this year after anti-Semitic messages from Trump supporters threatened him and his family. Professional troller Andrew Auernheimer hacked into university printers across America with instructions to print swastikas.
Last week’s Economist magazine nailed this in its cover story, “The Art of the Lie” – in this post-truth ideological era, audiences are self-selecting into media echo chambers that reinforce misconceptions, prejudice and lies.
The 19th-century proverb that “A lie can travel halfway around the world before truth gets its boots on” is more true today than ever before.
Non-profit organizations must become their own media companies, building content designed for the speed of social, then put that content into the public’s hands to share, discuss and debate on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. In today’s world, this is how we must tell stories and shape public opinion.
At Edelman, we call this Collaborative Journalism; whereby, we help our clients who are no longer served by shrinking media outlets to think and act as publishers. Our in-house team of experienced editors and writers do everything from crafting editorial for brand channels to partnering with media outlets “journalist-to- journalist.” We are doing this for several clients.
The Edelman Family Foundation will make a $25,000 donation to the Wiesenthal Center to kick start a new collaborative journalism effort to help Wiesenthal better tell its story, using modern tools like video, infographics and content partnerships. We will build a pro bono team to help shape this capability and get it off the ground.
In a world where anti-Semitism has found a new populist audience, expanding the Wiesenthal Center’s mission to a larger audience is essential. My team and I look forward to helping the Wiesenthal Center build new ways of telling its own story to stamp out hatred, achieve religious tolerance and ensure our world never forgets.
Richard Edelman is president and CEO.
