Media Literacy in the Age of Misinformation

Emily Page (00:00):

It started with a scratchy crackle of a radio dial. A voice came through urgent, precise, and terrifying. And for one strange night in 1938, America lost its grip on what was real.

Old Radio Announcer (00:15):

The Columbia Broadcasting system and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury on the air in the war of the world by HG Wells.

Doug Downs (00:27):

On the night before Halloween, 1938, listeners across America were settling in for an evening radio drama. They tuned their dials to CBS expecting orchestras or entertainment. What they got was panic. The broadcast began normally enough,

Old Radio Announcer (00:45):

Ladies and gentlemen, the director of the Mercury Theater and star of these broadcasts, Orson Welles.

Orson Welles (00:51):

We know now that in the early years of the 20th century, this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's, and yet as mortal as his own.

Doug Downs (01:04):

The Mercury Theater on the air presented the War of the Worlds, a science fiction story by HG Wells. But this version didn't sound like fiction. It mimicked a live newscast, complete with on the ground, reporters describing explosions in New Jersey, military movements and Martian cylinders landing in farm fields.

Orson Welles (01:24):

We know now that as human beings visit themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied.

Doug Downs (01:31):

The voice of Orson Welles just 23 years old at the time, was calm, convincing and increasingly catastrophic. People believed Earth was under attack. Some fled their homes, others clogged phone lines, calling police hospitals, treated patients with stress induced symptoms. Newspapers the next day reported a nation in hysteria and the truth. It was just a radio play. There were no martians, no tripods, no alien gas drifting over Manhattan. At the end of the episode, they even clarified it was a dramatization.

Orson Welles (02:10):

This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character, to assure you that the war of the world has no further significance than as the holiday offering. It was intended to be the Mercury Theater's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying, boo, starting now. We couldn't soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night. So we did the best next thing, we annihilated the world before your very ears and utterly destroyed the CBS. You will be relieved. I hope to learn that we didn't mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody. And remember, please for the next day or so, the terrible lesson you learned tonight that was No Martian. It's Halloween,

Doug Downs (03:01):

But it was too late. The panic had already cemented itself as legend. And what's more, most people hadn't even heard the broadcast. The myth of the mass panic grew larger than the panic itself fueled by sensational newspaper headlines eager to discredit radio their fast rising rival medium. It was a story about a story, a tale about trust, and how easily public perception could be shaped not by what happened, but by how it was told. Because when a medium is new and powerful and audiences aren't sure what to believe, well anything can sound true if it's told the right way Today on stories and strategies when the news is noise and the truth has too many versions, what does that mean for public trust and the role of public relations? Martians aren't landing anytime soon, but misinformation that's already here. My name is Doug Downs

Farzana Baduel (04:17):

And my name is Farzana Baduel. And can I just say a huge thank you to Nigel Gordon. Now Nigel is the CEO at Serato Communications, and he sent a lovely quote about our last banter that we had. Doug,

Doug Downs (04:33):

We argued back and forth. Yeah,

Farzana Baduel (04:35):

You know the one that I won the argument on PR?

Doug Downs (04:38):

I don't remember That one. Yes.

Farzana Baduel (04:41):

So he said that I'm Nigel. I own a boutique PR agency. I often listen to industry related podcast to keep up to speed. I really enjoyed your conversation with Doug Downs on the Stories and Strategies podcast. I listened to it four times.

Doug Downs (04:56):

Wow, cool.

Farzana Baduel (04:57):

Yeah, he went on to say, I'm sat here with my pen and notepad taking more notes from that conversation. And he went on to say he's glad that he found the interview and just made my day receiving that because we spend so much time on planning the podcast and you just don't know, does it land, does it not? And anyone who's listening, if it lands or you've got any advice on why it doesn't land well with you, do reach out and tell us. We are so open for feedback.

Doug Downs (05:25):

Nigel, you're awesome. Thanks so much, man.

Farzana Baduel (05:27):

Thank you, Nigel. Our guest this week is Mark Burry joining us from London. Hi Mark.

Mark Burey (05:34):

Hi. Thank you for having me on.

Farzana Baduel (05:35):

How are things in London?

Mark Burey (05:37):

Yeah, I'm unseasonably sticky and toasty at the moment in London, but we're handling it. Yeah, who would've thought

Farzana Baduel (05:46):

So Londons can handle the heat

Mark Burey (05:49):

As best we can. Is

Doug Downs (05:50):

This the one week of the year that the heat comes? This is it. After this, it's back to the cloud.

Mark Burey (05:54):

Yeah, everything goes into this week. Barbecues are out, everything.

Farzana Baduel (05:59):

Now, Mark, I have known you for years and I've always followed your journey, and we met when you were working with Alan Turing Institute, and we always had the most fascinating conversations about ai. And you are a seasoned communicator background that spans journalism, public relations, senior leadership across education and technology sectors. And I always say that I sometimes find them the best PRs, have a journalist background, and I think Doug, you also have a journalist background.

Doug Downs (06:33):

15 years slogging it out.

Farzana Baduel (06:35):

Yeah, it's really interesting, the unique approach to PR that those with a journalist background have. And I've always been in a huge admiration for them. Now you are now in the education space and you're focused on a number of topics that we all find really interesting and relevant, so about literacy and trust and media and how they intersect, and particularly for the next generation.

Doug Downs (07:02):

Absolutely. And I like that the evolution from journalist to public relations professionals. We're going to tell 'em some things and eventually we learn. Now maybe we should talk to them and figure out what it is they want us to do and to tell them and all that. It's just like a backwards evolution of humanity. Mark, let me start by asking you, what does media literacy mean in 2025 and who's supposed to be doing this now? Now that the so-called traditional gatekeepers have faded away into nothingness?

Mark Burey (07:33):

That's a great question. I think media literacy is a really kind of hot topic. It's something that's constantly evolving. So I think when I was younger, media literacy effectively meant the way in which you kind of receive and analyze news and broadcasting and how you receive that information in your ability to kind of digest and question or not question that information. But I think now media literacy also embraces those kind of newer, those newer media. Everything from content curation should be in there in terms of media literacy. So it's a really kind of wide and increasingly complex space. I think for younger people, media literacy can be really challenging because I think one of the things that younger people are particularly facing at the moment, which we didn't necessarily have when we were younger, is just the sheer volume of content that's being created. So I think that creates its own questions and challenges for young people. It's hard to take a step back and digest and dissect content when you're being constantly fed, usually short snippets of content. Whereas if you go back 10, 15 years, a lot of that content was longer form, more digestible. You had more of an opportunity to take a step back and think about what it meant for you. Is it accurate? Are the questions for me? So I think the whole question of media literacy has really, really changed.

Farzana Baduel (09:12):

And it's so important because when I think about the way that we were brought up, all of the content that we consumed were actually made by adults and they were made for children. But because they were made by adults, they always thought about the educational value as well as the entertainment. So Sesame Street would have child psychologists for instance, and so forth. But then now what you're having is you've got this generation that are coming up where they're actually not consuming content that has been made for them by adults. They're actually consuming content. They've been made by their peers, and so the intent for education through content production isn't there. So they're consuming something different. So I had a lot of fun with Grouch and all of the characters in Sesame Street and the count learning how to count, and there's a lot of these sort of knowledge that was kind of packaged up in these cartoon characters that we all consumed, but that's not there.

(10:13):

So there is a huge shift that's happening with this generation. Now, I also wanted to talk a little bit about local journalism because when you are a student and you want to learn about media literacy, often they would write for their school newspaper, then they would get this amazing buzz and this rush if one of their articles made it to the local paper. Now, in a world without strong local journalism, how do you feel that's going to impact in terms of not only public accountability for local communities, but also young people as well, that they don't have that segue, especially those who want to go into journalism. It often was like an initial playing ground for those who wanted to then go on to national journalism. How do you feel that's impacting us, just the decline of local journalism and affecting communities as well?

Mark Burey (11:08):

Yeah, that's a really interesting point. I think one of the things that has become more and more apparent is that with the withering away of local journalism, that actually the role of PRS has changed considerably. If I think about my first role in PR and communications, which was a local government role, really, I probably learned the most I did because the level of scrutiny from local journalists was so intense. Their understanding of issues of decision-making, of the history of a local community was so forensic that it meant that as a PR person, you really had to up your game to understand and anticipate what their questions might be, and also build and nurture relationships with them. And a lot of that isn't there anymore. And so as PR, I think has assumed a little bit of that responsibility in terms of I think the role of senior leaders and encouraging organizational leaders, CEOs to be, I guess a bit more forthcoming with information, embracing local communities, being willing to be transparent about decisions that they might be making to consult more widely with communities. And then to the second part of the question, fora.

(12:32):

Yeah, it's not really there as a pathway for young people, that kind of traditional local journalism route and then perhaps through to a stint and national newspaper or a national broadcast. So that's not really the route now. But what I would say for many of the younger people that I interview for roles or that I try to support or mentor, actually, they get a lot of their learning. And obviously it's a different type of learning from working in their own spaces in their bedroom, creating content, thinking about what works, learning editing skills, picking up skills around ai, embracing creativity in different kinds of ways. And actually, although they don't necessarily have those kind of core journalistic skills, their ability to create content is, I think is certainly outstrips where young people would've been, say 20, 25 years ago. The kind of readiness to create journalistic content is high.

Doug Downs (13:39):

Mark, I want to talk to you about misinformation. I won't go so far as disinformation that has somewhat malevolent tone to it, but just the misinformed people that think they know something about something and they don't know enough about that something. And let me ask this in the long form, which I'm sure everyone appreciates. I umpire baseball on the weekends. Baseball has a lot of rules. I don't know if you've noticed at all. There's a lot of rules. Best description I've ever heard is it's a game where 80% of the time we're using 20% of the rules, and then 20% of the time, we suddenly use 80% of the rules. And people don't know nothing about beyond the 20%. And you can have confrontations with coaches who've seen something on TV or parents that are, you don't confront a parent, but you hear it from parents who've seen something on tv or there's this myth about, oh, they were in the bat's box. So they're protected. And that's a complete myth. It doesn't exist, but people will latch onto something when you're misinformed. It's not just, oh, I didn't know that it's, well, if you tell me something that goes against what I already know, then I'm going to entrench myself and dig deeply. So how do we as PR pros speak to those who are misinformed, more willing to entrench on the things that they're misinformed by without sounding condescending, especially when we all have our own facts?

Mark Burey (15:08):

Yeah, I think one of the things we've kind of all come to realize is that facts are really very much down to people's interpretation a lot of the time. And so I think one of the ways in which PRS can try to, I guess, navigate a very difficult space is rather than presenting back the facts as they see them, is raising questions about perhaps things that have been presented to them.

Doug Downs (15:42):

Appreciative Inquiry. Yeah,

Mark Burey (15:43):

Exactly. Precisely. So it's more about taking the dialogue into a space that might be grounded in fact than stating those factors. You see them because as you've alluded to, that only creates more and more confrontation. And I think one of the advantages of newer and emerging media and channels and platforms like podcasters, they do allow for that inquiry and questioning. And there's no need to necessarily be so entrenched if you've got 30, 45 minutes to discuss a particular theme. Whereas if you're coming in to do a radio interview for two or three minutes, actually, you probably just want to get your facts out as cold and as quickly as you want to

Farzana Baduel (16:33):

Mark before your current role at working in education, you were head of comms for the Alan Turing Institute. And for those of our listeners who haven't come across them, they're the UK's National Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. They're around about 10 years old. And Mark, you started working with them in 2019, so well before Chachi Beauty came and transformed our lives, our working lives. I wanted to ask, did you see it coming? You were working obviously at the Island I Touring Institute. Did you see chatt, these large language models, perplexity and all these other tools coming into play and being a comms professional, did you see the potential of how it would impact our industry?

Mark Burey (17:22):

Yeah, so I think one of the things that I've learned at the El Ching Institute on Reflection is that it's very hard to see it coming. I was fortunate to work with some fantastic brains and brilliant scientists who really appreciate and understand the kind of nuances of ai, but actually for many are deeply entrenched in the science behind ai. For them, there's always a note of caution around what may or may not emerge. And actually that was very much embedded into our communication strategy, trying to act as that kind of voice of reason, because I think we can all know and appreciate that there's a great deal of hype and a great deal of hype around ai. So actually, I think from a kind of professional point of view, view, I didn't necessarily appreciate how quickly and rapidly things would change because part of my role was actually trying to manage people's expectations and perhaps on reflection they were managed too much. And actually, I think with things like chat GPT, it's changed things so remarkably and so rapidly for people working in a whole plethora of industries in a way that I don't think anybody could have anticipated.

Doug Downs (19:01):

And it's not a new tech, but another new piece of Arsenal that we have as PR pros is podcasts and sort of burst to the forefront with the US election podcasts have been around close to 20 years now. But are podcasts the new discussion point? Are they sort of the new town hall, the place where people can go deep on a conversation? And in our last episode, we took opposing sides on a controversial topic. Well, Farzana did believe in hers. I sort of quasi believe in my argument, but we had rhetoric. Is it a place where rhetoric can exist and is that a pathway forward for us as a species even?

Mark Burey (19:43):

Yeah, I think podcasts have been a real breakthrough. I grew up as a young person who listened a lot to talk the news radio and really appreciated that space for informed dialogue. And seeing podcasts grow has been really eyeopening for me. I think it's been a brilliant development. I think it's a space where people can have complex conversations, can take opposing views in a really, really healthy way. It also gives people who wouldn't necessarily get an opportunity to share their views or their stories, a new space and a new opportunity to do so. Obviously, I'm sure you'll appreciate and understand, but there's such a range of podcasts and some of the topic areas are incredibly niche, like nail clipping for seniors, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. There really is something for everyone, and I think that's a really good thing because it kind of democratizes media in a way that wasn't there before. Radio can only do a certain thing in a certain way. Other forms of media, the dialogue is perhaps too truncated to get to the level of depth that you might want on a particular subject. So I think podcasts have been a really, really healthy development on the whole, obviously with some caveats. But on the whole, I'm a big fan. Awesome.

Doug Downs (21:20):

Mark. So thanks so much for your time today. My pleasure.

Farzana Baduel (21:23):

And on the same topic of podcasts, we had a previous guest called Bradley Davis, and he left a question for you. He's from a company called Pod Chaser. You ready?

Bradley Davis (21:35):

Yeah, let's go. PR has been branded the attention industry. I wonder if that is going away and I wonder what's more important now? Is it attention or trust?

Doug Downs (21:49):

Oh, nice.

Bradley Davis (21:50):

And how you define those two things.

Mark Burey (21:52):

Right. That's a really great question. I like that one. Well, I would plump for trust. I think trust is an increasingly rare and valued commodity in PR and in other spaces. And I think attention can have certain impacts and can achieve so much. But ultimately, in a PR sense is the trust that brings about genuine organizational change, which is what prs are really in the business for. How can you improve your business, add to your business, create new opportunities for your business? And you can only do that through trust.

Doug Downs (22:36):

And we're learning how to measure it gradually.

Mark Burey (22:39):

Gradually. Yeah.

Doug Downs (22:40):

And these things take time. Your turn. What question would you like to leave behind for our next guest?

Mark Burey (22:45):

My question is slightly playful. If you forgive me, something I kind of ponder in my mind sometimes. My question for your next guest would be, if they had to manage a PR account for a historical figure, who would that be and why would it be that person?

Doug Downs (23:07):

Oh, awesome. Okay, Farzana, putting you right on the spot. Which one would you dive in on and try to manage their account? And I assume the goal of the campaign is improve my reputation. I assume that's okay, make me better than I am.

Farzana Baduel (23:25):

God, I would choose my grandfather. He was incredible. He really was. He was like military advisor to the Sharan and chief of Staff Oman. He did cos and I mean, he was an extraordinary character full of adventure and just, he lived in a time where there wasn't much stories documented. And I think a lot of us have incredible people in our families and their memories live on through verbal storytelling.

Doug Downs (23:59):

I'm going to pick Thomas Jefferson. So Thomas Jefferson did a lot of good things for America in its time, but his words seemed to conflict with his deeds. Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. He impregnated one of his slaves, had a child with one of his slaves, didn't necessarily live by the credence that he wrote. And now in America, people are starting to question how valuable was Thomas Jefferson in Canada, sir Johnny A. McDonald, which was long considered the father of the country. Statues are being toppled and taken down of Sir John a for some of the things that he did with regards to First Nations. Mark, how about you? I don't really have a definitive answer. You had the

Mark Burey (24:43):

Question? Yeah, I had the question, but not the answer. Well, one slightly playful thing that I do think about sometimes is, this is going to sound slightly odd, is these are not historical figures. It's more about animals who have been given a really hard rap

Farzana Baduel (25:04):

Like sharks

Mark Burey (25:04):

And how we could like sharks. And actually

Farzana Baduel (25:07):

They deserve it though.

Mark Burey (25:09):

Sharks are evil. Well, you might say that

Farzana Baduel (25:11):

Was, have you seen Jaws?

Mark Burey (25:13):

Well, this is what I was going to say for Zana because I think we just on the anniversary, I can't remember whether it's 40 or 50 of Jaws being released. And one of the things that Steven Spielberg says he regrets is actually how he changed their profile to such a negative and actually had such a big impact on them being treated in a certain way. And he kind of thinks, I made a great film, but look what I did. So yeah, it's just something that I think about at times.

Farzana Baduel (25:48):

Well, I'll leave that to you to go and swim Shark,

Mark Burey (25:54):

You haven't seen me swim, obviously. I wouldn't last very long.

Farzana Baduel (25:59):

Thank you. Thanks, mark. Many thanks for your time again, mark.

Mark Burey (26:02):

No, thank you for having me.

Doug Downs (26:06):

Here are the top three things we got today from Mark Burey. Number one, media literacy has evolved with technology and peer generated content. Mark emphasizes that media literacy today is broader and more complex than in the past. It's not just about analyzing the news from traditional outlets. It now includes navigating content created by peers on social platforms. Number two, the decline of local journalism has impacted accountability and youth engagement. Mark reflects on how local journalism once held public institutions accountable and served as a ground for aspiring journalists. Its decline has not only reduced community level scrutiny, but also removed an important entry point for young people to learn storytelling, critical inquiry and civic responsibility. And number three, building trust is central to modern PR and media strategy. Trust, not just attention is now the real currency in media and communications. Misinformation is harder to correct because people often double down on what they think they know.

Farzana Baduel (27:14):

There you go. Trust is our ultimate currency. Thank you so much. Now,

Doug Downs (27:19):

Absolutely.

Farzana Baduel (27:20):

If you'd like to send a message to our guest, mark Burry, we've got his contact information in the show notes, so do reach out to him and tell him what you thought about the interview. Now, stories and Strategies is a co-production of Curzon Public Relations, JGR Communications and Stories and Strategies podcasts. Did you know you can watch video episodes on YouTube? There's a link to our YouTube channel in the show notes. And thank you to our producers Emily Page and David Olajide. Lastly, do us a favour forward this episode to one friend and thank you for listening.