Abuse of Trust: Anatomy of a Breakdown
From this blogpost’s title, you’re probably assuming this is about the BP oil spill, or the SEC’s settlement with Goldman Sachs, the recent financial legislation, or a new perspective on Bernie Madoff.
Instead, I want to shine a flashlight on l’affaire Sherrod. From a trust perspective.
For those of you outside the US, the bare narrative is this: Fox News played a videotape of a speech by a federal government employee, which appeared to be racist, and called for her resignation. In very short order, the government did indeed fire her, without checking on the facts.
The Shirley Sherrod Case
Those of you in the US, I’m not going to link here to any more background. The newspapers are full of it.
What I do want to suggest is to offer a case example of how trust breaks down, in the only terms that matter: yours.
Here is a link to the original Fox video; the first 45 seconds are about this story.
Here is the foxnews.com coverage of the video, on July 20—a quick read.
Now: most of you know what came next. But you almost certainly know it from secondary sources. Rarely, these days, do we actually get to make up our own minds from primary material.
We have an opportunity here to contrast punditry with original source material. Ask yourself what you know of the Army-McCarthy hearings in the 1950s. Google it a bit if you want. Then compare it with the actual video, here.
In the same vein, may I strongly suggest that all of you seize this opportunity to view Ms. Sherrod’s original video in its entirety. It’s not a light request: the entire video lasts 43 minutes, and the ‘hot stuff’ is scattered throughout the middle section.
I still suggest you look at it. This is a teachable moment. But don’t be taught by what you hear from the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times, or the NAACP, or pundits of the right or of the left–the signal-to-noise ratio is huge. Instead, seize this opportunity to teach yourself.
I won’t say anymore just now; I’ll add my own comments in a few days.
There is a ton of learning to be had by each of us watching the original source material—at roughly the same time the opinion makers are all ossifying the official learnings.
There is to be had here learning about how we come to trust, who we trust, how much power we grant to those we trust, and the benefits and risks of trusting others.
So–if you can find time to watch the original, please share with us what you learned from it.
