The world’s deadliest game: when bloggers and govt play hide and seek for the truth.

This is written by Darkness of the brotherhood, guest columnist: I have a full round of conference calls today – so this has to be a lightning post – lets dive in; tell me pronto – do you get the feeling that something is amiss – do you for example flip open the ST only to wonder why there’s no news in the newspapers? Or have you ever sat through a news report only to wonder, why only side A is forwarded and what happened to the side B account?

Wonder no more – welcome to the national game of hide and seek; where the elusive truth is very much like the Cheshire cat; its got a winning smile, but its pastry light when it comes to the filling.

Granted what I am describing is certainly opaque and at best vague; that’s only because these days (real or imagined) I just can’t seem to pin down the feeling something is amiss – you could just as well take your pick; everything from how Temasek and GIC lost so much money; to perhaps the issue of why some town councils staff are getting paid exorbitant bonuses and everything in between – its really a litany that hardly requires any elaboration.

Straits Times and CNA DELETED online articles on CDC bonus fiasco

If you want to really understand why the press seems to be so evasive these days and all the seem to do is give most of all the mushroom treatment – keep you in the dark and feed you shit – that may have something remotely to do with the whole idea of damage control i.e mythologizing and legitimizing; the whole idea of the status quo ante –  that could explain why one of the preferred strategies that’s usually adopted by those in power is to say nothing or provide only scraps of information in the hope that everything will just blow over and hopefully disappear into the garbage heap of history.

But what’s the real cost of silence?

Before we dive into the actual cost, it may be a good idea to find out why people do the things they do: selective reportage, silence along with adopting a little goes a very long way strategy just happens to be one of the most effective tools at damage control – for one it takes its cue from clinical psychology – deny the existence of a disease and viola all the symptoms melt happily away and all societal ills melts away happily like lemon drops.

Besides it seldom pays to be too forthright by volunteering information, leaders who are too quick to provide a public explanation for a debacle are especially vulnerable. For one there’s simply too much at stake; reputation the whole idea of up keeping the myth of infallibility along with the necessary lie that every regime needs to forward as a raison to secure its hold on power – in short, it doesn’t pay to admit ones mistakes.

What most people don’t realize is there actually a science to denial; I am serious and it goes something like this – leaders will only publicly offer an explanation if and when they calculate the cost of doing so to be lower than the cost of not doing so.

But how reliable is this strategy of keeping silent, sweeping everything underneath the carpet and forwarding only a cut down version of the truth?

Well, first of all let’s gut out a few myths: silence is not golden; in fact, it full of shit.

My point is this; an information black out or white wash in any guise these days; just doesn’t cut it, not in the pineapple eyed age of the internet – where the truth can always be ferreted out and brought to light – it doesn’t matter whether it’s a financial debacle, investment fiasco or even exorbitant pay outs in the form of bonuses to town council staff – in the long run; all it does is corrode the trust and good will between those in power and those who and only.

It makes far more strategic sense to provide a clear and unambiguous account when something goes wrong then to try to elide it with wafer thin sound bites.  

If you don’t believe me consider the case of Exxon (which incidentally had no choice but to change their name to Exxon-Mobil to regain consumer trust), which was notoriously inept in providing an explanation for the disastrous oil spill along the coast of Alaska in 1989. What was the initial response to the crisis? Silence cum less-is-more (does it sound familiar?). The CEO Lawrence Rawl whose picture incidentally I still pin to my dart board to commemorate the murder of all the penguins and polar bears waited 6 days to speak to the press. By then all the damage had been done. By the time Exxon wised up, their statements were considered too weak, ineffectual and a reflection of their ineptitude.

Result: Customers boycotted Exxon and refused to buy their products and they suffered losses that tabled somewhere in the upper reaches of billions in lost revenues! Exxon’s refusal to acknowledge its role left an indelible stain on its reputation as a responsible and trusted technology provider to this day.

What this case study illustrates is constricting the flow of information is simply trouble in the long run. Denying its existence is even worse. And continuing as if nothing has happened – just cuts off any opportunity for closure and the prospects of moving forward.

Another reason why I don’t like silence is it doesn’t solve as much as create more problems – for example marginalize a community in the internet and what do you actually get? Do they keel over a die; or maybe they just dig their heels deeper very much like the Londoners did when Hitler once tried to bomb Londoners into submission; my point is it doesn’t pay to constrict the free flow of information by attempting to bracket the social discourse; all it that does is create missing blanks and hot spots in the narrative – and who do you think steps in to fill up those spaces?

Usually all that does is create ideal conditions for hucksters, charlatans and those bent on a spot of mayhem to step in and fill in the missing links in the fill-in-the-blanks narrative with their self serving version of the “truth.” That incidentally is how radicalism, fundamentalism and conspiracy theories typically take root. Where disclosure is only partial and lacking in substantive detail it allows opportunities for undesirable elements to confect their own version of what-happened and who-dunnit versions to fester.

 

“Yes, these are valid concerns and we must really try to address them the best we can.”

In this sort of open setting, schools of thoughts and states of minds are presented winnowed, challenged and tested to continually reject lies leaving only the truth. That restores trust in both the people and institution. Ameliorating the situation by being open and frank may still be fraught with risk but at least it respects the ideal. The compact between people and state run institutions is worth nourishing, nurturing and preserving.

You don’t have to be a genius to figure out; the only reason, why silence continues to have any currency resembling a social or intrinsic value is someone, somewhere at sometime expects to hear your side of the story.

But what if they no longer care to even listen? What if they don’t even feel the need to understand? Or don’t even feel the need to close the gap?

Can we then say if that terminal stage is reached – silence has lost all its value that it simply means leaders and people will eventually find themselves standing so far apart from each other, they might as well be two ships passing each other in the darkened night – that’s just trouble, big trouble.

Darkness 2009

The Brotherhood Press