With misinformation being an issue that people must be on the lookout for in their daily lives, it’s also worth thinking about how this extends into the world of business.
You want your business to be thought of as reliable, factually correct and trustworthy, and that means that you have to be able to identify sources worth listening to – so as to avoid propagating or integrating inaccuracies. There are numerous problems that could be associated with a failure to do so, and knowing those can help you plot a course ahead.
Assessing Credibility
Is the site or publication that you’re getting this information from an expert or trusted, credible source within that industry itself? If you’re unfamiliar with the industry that you’re researching, answering this question might itself take some research. However, it can also help to understand the role that they play. When it comes to digital security, reading the annual cybersecurity report is a reliable way to get your information because of the established credibility of the publisher, as well as the citations and explanations that have been published alongside the research.
These kinds of reassurances can allow you to make decisions about your business with more confidence. You’re not then just following that one source of information; you’re making a decision based on the accumulation of several different pieces of research.
Importance of Perspective
When you’re considering a given piece of information, in order to understand if it’s credible, you have to understand its intention. If something is designed to convey information, it will generally attempt to convey as much information as possible while offering citations and explaining the differing perspectives that do appear on the topic.
However, if the intention is to gear the reader’s attitude or opinion in a certain direction, you might find that the tone is much more directional – explaining why the information that they have provided fits a certain narrative. In that regard, it also becomes incredibly important to examine the tone of a given piece. While this is something that can be manipulated and adapted, a more emotive and directional tone might be indicative of something that’s unreliable, rather than a cold, informative approach.
Outdated Intel
Sometimes, what makes a given source unreliable isn’t due to anything malicious or intentional; it’s simply been rendered obsolete by the passage of time. When you find information that directly pertains to your business, it’s absolutely vital that you check when the information was published. Then, if it was a long time ago (or even sometimes if it wasn’t), you can follow up on the topic through a separate search and find whether the original information has been countered in recent times. It can be strange to think of pieces of research as having expiration dates. Still, that mentality might be helpful in allowing you to change your perspective towards your own investigations – knowing what to understand as potential red flags so that you can stay on track.
