Category: Politics

  • What Happens When Companies Become Partisan?

    Elon Musk’s right-wing posts on Twitter have plummeted the stock at Tesla, the public company where Musk is CEO. I discuss this with Lana McGilvray of Purpose and Peter Horan of Horan MediaTech. Background: On Tuesday, December 13, Peter shared this article from Inside EVs about recent research from YouGov and Morning Consult, each arguing that Tesla is now…

  • Why Musk is Stalling

    Elon Musk seems to have accepted that he will have to do what he promised and acquire Twitter, but now he is delaying the close of the deal. He has a good reason, but it’s not the one you think. The late Steve Jobs was so persuasive that people said he had a “reality distortion…

  • Misinformation & “Prebunking,” Experience Stacks & Physical Objects

    A study suggests that inoculating internet users against misinformation might be more successful than fact checking later, but I’m not so sure. Plus, a price sticker triggers a trip down memory lane. The Limits of “Prebunking” in the Fight Against Misinformation A new study in the journal Science Advances, “Psychological inoculation improves resilience against misinformation on…

  • The New York Times’ Moral Lapse

    The Gray Lady blew it when it decided to review Jared Kushner’s new memoir, no matter how scathing the review. Your correspondent also blew it by posting about the review.  When people learn that I’m an atheist often the first thing they say is, “oh, so you don’t believe in God?” “No,” I push back…

  • What Twitter should do next (after Musk)

    Now that the Tesla CEO is riding off into the sunset, the social media company needs to skip the protracted court battle and focus on what’s important. On Friday, Elon Musk made official his desire to wiggle out of his Twitter acquisition. Many Dispatch readers kindly and gratifyingly reached out or posted saying “Brad, you called this one!”…

  • Nothing is ever meant to be

    The difference between stories and real life is that stories make sense. We humans love stories. We love to tell stories, and we love to consume stories even more. “Tell me a story!” little children command. Whether our stories are sweeping novels like Anna Karenina, a sweeping collection of TV series like more than a half…

  • What Fox News Should Have Said

    A new campaign by Check My Ads to get advertisers to stop supporting the conservative news network prompted an entirely inadequate response.  On Thursday, the folks at Check My Ads received widespread coverage about their new campaign to stop advertisers from supporting Fox News. The three Check My Ads founders—Claire Atkin, Nandini Jammi, and Mikel…

  • A Simple Test for What Counts as “The Metaverse”

    Lots of walled gardens and videogame platforms are now touting themselves as part of the metaverse, but there’s an easy way to tell if it’s true. Plus, revising Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” Two shorter (although slightly connected) main stories this week… 1. Revisiting Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” If you subscribe to…

  • Trust is Analog

    A handshake is worth a thousand Zoom calls. This has implications for going back to the office, building corporate culture, and democracy. You’re on a short elevator ride with one other person. Neither of you speak, but you get a lot of information. Does the other person politely keep a distance? Make momentary eye contact?…

  • Anti-Vaxxers and the Arts of Persuasion

    People decide with their hearts and then later justify those decisions with their heads.  Once you accept this, then how you approach communications changes because all communication is about persuasion in one way or another. Learning simply to ask the question, “where is the heart in this?” can be powerful, although it can also be…