Contradicts the common cause and thats the way we going to run the Atlantic Council at this time. We see this as a challenge. Safe,e to keep our staff the community safe. At the same time, we have to rally. We do not have you here in the room, but we encourage you to engage in our discussion. Accoronavirus throughout this event. Our team will be monitoring your comments and passing them to the moderator as much as possible. At the Atlantic Council, we are working rapidly to respond to provide all viewers as much understanding as we can realtime, but also policy ideas that we how we can collaborate better. We find ourselves racing for. Ajor geopolitical impacts the covid19 spread is causing chaos and confusion around the globe. But what we know already is the coronavirus has reached 130 countries. We know that this has spread to 169,000 cases. In the United States, it could be as many as 80,000. What we know is the information and misinformation about the Novel Coronavirus is spreading faster than the pandemic itself. We must all turn to ask first. As always, the words we use matter. The who updated their assessment. The president of the United States called for a national emergency. Theres a reason the term viral applies to both false information. This is a Public Health response. The is the understanding of coronavirus. This underscores the current information, of whether friends and neighbors or local officials and the media, which people turn to to decide whether it is safe to walk on the street or go to the grocery store. We at the Atlantic Council are , weming the numbers today wont even know about until 15 days from now. See usnot only going to spread, a real spread, but we will see something that has already taken place. We are going to get more testing kits so we know the numbers. If you think you are in line with the outbreak, you are always three you are already three weeks behind. Youve got to be almost overreacting to keep up with it. That is why we expect more announcements in the coming , precautions people will be instructed to take in the United States and elsewhere. What we are learning in real really important proactive countries, societies, and individuals do test. They are performing better than reactive ones. Governments that engage in truth telling are heading off dangerous faster than those that obfuscate or delay. And as the number of confirmed , individuals and communities are increasingly required to make judgments about the trustworthiness of institutions. Individuals what the Public Sector in the media should be doing. Thank you for joining us. Over. Ing to hand this editor will be moderating this discussion. Richard edelman in new york will be giving us interesting information. Richard is in the city that never sleeps, that is now shutting down its restaurants and bars. Whoever thought we would see that. I am the director and editor of the Digital Research lab. I would like to begin by echoing fred possis remarks. I would like to give you a warm welcome to the internet. If youre not in the room with us, we love your engagement and we reiterate, if you have any questions, please use ac coronavirus. Xoom, are tuning in via please put your comment in the chat. If you are tuning in facebook, in theput your comment comment section. This conversation is happening in real time. We are learning more about the global pandemic. The conversation about objectives this conversation in particular is about objective information and public trust, which is a collective challenge that involves government, media, and the private sector. We are here, today, joined by experience all of those and directly on my left i am joined, at an appropriate ,istance by linda ross edelman who leads the d. C. Office. Tom bossert, who served as Homeland Security adviser and the National Security advisor and the media reporter at axios im sorry, i screw that up every single time. And we have Richard Edelman who is launching a special report today on the trust barometer. Conversation, we will have a few ground rules. First, the best practice is theys referring back to latest sciencebased information. Coronavirus. Gov is the website that is being updated on a continuous basis. , we use certain terms and we dont use of the terms. We dont use the term fake news. It turns out its not a particularly well researched term thats not objective. We use the term misinformation, which we define as the spread of false information without intent. Meaning is not deliberate. We have the spread of false information with these tests. , we are seeing a lots. Epidemic is defined by the World Health Organization as an overabundance of information for people tohard find reliable guidance when they need it, and right now, we need it most. Richard, over you. Thanks. We have been doing studies for the past 20 years. There are important trendlines to look at, which are specifically trust in government and trust in media are quite low. That hasomething happened over five or six years. The gap between trust in government is at record lows. We have the trust in decline as a result of social media. Crisisnto this understanding this is the position of institutions that has changed. This is real and very important change. Trust was from the top down. Became horizontal. It went peertopeer. This is the most trusted institution in the world. The ceos are expected to speak up on the issues of the day. Undertakenas literally 10 days ago. This is misinformation. We thought this was of vital importance to understand what the role could be for the right to sector in supplementing the Public Sector. What we have found is deeply important. The most incredible source of information is my employer. 15 points higher than in the government. The Mainstream Media is as anntly referred to information source, followed by the cbc, dubya a joke, its cetera etc. Cdc, w h o w. H. O. , etc. We find there is a deep need for frequency of information contact. So, if my employer is the most trusted, we want people to be communicating daily, at least, if not twice a day. What . What is going on at the company, so vacation or paid leave or whats happening in terms of your employment force or what your policies are on benefits. But they are also ask acting face forward for leaders. In third information parties. They want scientists. They want people who have academic credentials, experts. They dont want politicians. I want to reiterate there is a deep concern about the quality discussion. Created by the politics of the time. Thats it deeply important problem. We must stop that out. This must not be seen as one party or another. Its what is good for society. I want to reiterate, there is a clear sense of my employer is better prepared than my country on a 13 points difference. Again, the role of business in communicating information on our cannot be more clearly stated in this study. Again, the information context is, yes, we want information from Health Authorities. But its not sufficient. Moreover, we are not sure what we are getting from extra media is sufficient. We deeply distrust social media. The platform for truth must encompass a major contribution i it must do so frequently through credible sources such as scientists and experts. Thank you very much, richard. Mention atelists, least one source of information thatound incredibly useful is objective about covid19. Source ofe to log one information. They are getting most information from major media over national sources, global organizations, or National Health like the cbc. How are they dealing with the eight variants . Especially when they encounter numbers over time, one thing that is turning them to the News Organization is really strong data utilization. Things going viral are being proposed by the Washington Post and boston media. That is where people really trust News Organizations right now. Its not the same. Now is the time when the News Organizations need to bring the organizations back to the authority of the journalists. You have really strong subject Matter Experts within your walls. It might make sense. The pieces that have done really well, it is just trust. They are sidelined or not sidelined first, but really heavy and they help people understand the disease. Of the ways that journalists can get around that trust issue is to make sure we are lifting up voices that they have inhouse to build more constricted concentric circles of trust, right . Yes. And News Organizations are wellequipped to create really smart graphics. I cannot stress enough, that is one area where these positions can be really great barometers of quality information. You mentioned to her three sources specifically of good information. You mentioned the washington showedhat essentially projections on how to flatten the. Are there any other sources of information to include . Yes. Thatnk one good reference is not a media company, if you check in with government websites. That is something you will hear about from our other panelists. The information youre getting from the World Help Organization and local Health Authorities is ae other point where we have really strong quality information around the spiras. Around this virus. The onlys are not indicator, but we have seen when the overall federal government communicates, like declaring a national emergency, markets respond. But we have also seen that were never President Trump personally communicates about this on twitter, the markets respond negatively. Take us back into your old role, which is a Basement Office with very low clearance. Job, howd your old would you respond to the pandemic threat . Part left out,a this is based on data and people are gravitating toward data. This is important. This is data driven. I would like to go back into this by saying i have the benefit of being in two categories that richard just laid out. Colleagues are also highly respected. ve learned from them they have mentored me. So, i have had this really interesting opportunity with this particular pandemic outbreak to have each of them almost working for each other. We have the graphics and Data Analysis for people who are literally the best in their field. It strikes me that as you reference government websites, Government Authority is a very important point to hammer home. The president advice, and all the people who work for the president advice. I would caution them against a number of things, but one of them is mission creep. Each of them on this email chain are constantly reminded not in a critical way, but in a helpful reminder way to stay in our lane. We have a derivation of some analytic science. Its not my back of the envelope skills. Ath the notion of telling the present want to do, you dont. You advise him. There are key principles. Advice to leaders in business and the government, it should tell people what you know. You should avoid telling them what you dont know and you should acknowledge uncertainties. Its importance to be affirmative. Do not tell people what they dont know. And they say, of course, if i dont know, i will not speculate. Be withlic trust will you throughout the process. Around on has come his friday address to delivering its notaction, but just a crisis of public trust nature. He is started to foreshadow the future. It after crimes or shootings. You will see this gag order. He will say what he knows, say what he doesnt know, he will stop at that point. So, as somebody listen to this right now. They have a classified government space and i have all sorts of knowledge but that is an acceptable answer. I cant and wont tell you that because it remains classified. You often hear someone ask about a suspect and say im not going to give you any information about that. There are key principles at work. Say, lets frame it around those four principles, even though it seems like an emergency. The consistency point, the point of people are trying to drive home right now, lets remember the other one. Lets remember not to make fun of peoples fears. A mentor of mine called me very early end remind me of this. You should not make fun of the people. You have been working on this for 16 years. You understand the plan is based on data. We developed these plans, these currencies in the bush white house, will he tried to apply to pandemic, these things have been you haved internalized that for 15 years. When you speak to people, dont presume their fears are unwarranted and also dont present they should have internalized this and make fun of their skepticism or their slowness to absorb information. To your point about the collective knowledge, one of the things we look at a live in the research lab is, a, know your source. That the way to guard against the spread of deliberate, false information, but also know your sources source, which is a good way to guard against misinformation. You are not going to have a group of 50 or 60 of the worlds leading experts in the field, like i have in this 1 i tell people its important when you have no other barometer or differentiator to look for some editorial function. If you can find a curated source, people whose professional responsibility it is to edit that. They have lawyers and editors researchcheckers to go every assertion i make to make sure it stands up to the test of accuracy. When i dont know what to do or who to follow, if there is tend to like me that i agree with or believe, i try to find it, repeated in some source, some edited, curated source. Talk about curated sources. A lot of that lowest barrier edited sources. Report. The special people generally think their employers are that are prepared to heal with the continuity of operations during a pandemic threat, but also be a trusted source of information. What does that tell us . Doing tocorporations take responsibility in this moment. Obviously i do not advise these companies on how to communicate internally annexed early about this. What is key . What i havell you been saying to our clients. It is not business as usual, but it is business and we have a fiduciary and moral responsibility to keep his is going as much as we can. Theres three primary principles. This is unprecedented. Were going to figure this out. Lets give each other grace. Than would rather be safe sorry. I would rather overreact than under react. That. Telling our clients and three, for those who can remote work, remote work is how people work. I think as is the case with many situations, we will come out of this better and stronger in many ways. There are four almost in our people are worried about their health. They are worried about the economy. They are worried about their job. Ad reporters have responsibility not only to provide care, but they are also worried about their future. Last, going back to showing compassion. Be very clear about how you are communicating. If you know what you were saying, say it. If you dont know what you are saying, its ok. Under any circumstances, particularly now, its ok to not know. It seems like that is prudent advice, not just at this moment, but all moments. Is this an Inflection Point where a Good Opportunity is to go back . I tend to be a natural optimist. I tend to think when things happen, we will come out of it for a reason. Smarter ing to be terms of how we conduct business. We will be more compassionate. Everything i have talked about is elevated right now in terms of meeting this level of clarity. I keep going back to this level of grace when we are operating right now. This seems like a good moment to a, use our own words from the stage. Please engage with us on social media. Use q aaccoronavirus. Accoronavirus. Twitter has made the decision related tohtags coronavirus are upgraded from the latest sciencebased services. If you are engaging on the internet right now, youll also notice coronavirus. Gov comes up first, which is a best practice. Betting betting what we dont know. Setting what we dont know. Sarah . Young people defined in this 34,rts are defined as 18 to which covers most of the millennials. And it says they are turning to social media by 50, 60 . There is a concerted effort about twitter, facebook taking measures, google. , socialquestion is media platforms have come concerted effort to promote that expert information. But what should we be doing to navigate that . We have that every single day in times of pandemics. Space . We see the online great question. I am really great that you grateful that you walked us through. The reason is this. Social media platforms coordinate activities. These are putting out activities. It can be difficult to detect. There are a lot of ways to detect it. Really difficult for social platforms to navigate is coordinatedthat is in a really innocent way of sharing what they believe to be true. I see this as being a greater problem during a time of great confusion. It is noted in the trust barometer study. We know that so many people are posting things that are not necessarily attributed to the same experts we cited because they are not trained to cite experts the way we are. Especially with young people, who are the young people most . Ikely going to be tuning into i think the best thing social platforms can do right now is effort to haveat a trusted brand and information. Hey can be officials it can be someone like dr. Fauci. It can be a top organization. Make a conscious effort. We sought to years ago facebook tried to remove some of the Brand Companies because they wanted to create more more attractions. Now might be a time to turn up bestis time, use your listings. Higher professionals. Talk to the government and really strong people in the Scientific Community to figure. Ut the best force and that may mean you can abrogate one party on one side of the aisle or another. Forget about the political science. Sure that this is reflected in your algorithms. This goes to a point that. Ichard made earli