It’s been a few months since news organizations caught the criminal lie flung by Melissa Howard, a GOP candidate for the Florida House of Representatives. Short take: She claimed she had a degree from Miami University in Ohio, and she did not.
Once caught, and after some lying before acknowledging the truth, she dropped out of the race in August 2018. It’s not the first time real or would-be politicians from all political stripes have lied about the credentials. She pleaded guilty in September 2018 to the lie, and the misdemeanor carried 25 hours of community service.
More interesting in the world of ethics may be Anthony Pedicini, a campaign strategist for the campaign and part of Strategic Image Management. When questions began to fly about the accuracy of her claim, he’s quoted using the term “fake news” to describe the accurate information that Howard lied about her degree. As The Washington Post reported on August 11, a few days before she dropped out of the race.
Howard’s campaign consultant, Anthony Pedicini, said in a statement that Howard’s husband suffered a cardiac incident Friday night and is at a Florida hospital. She is “focused on him right now,” he said, and not on “fake news.” Asked why the campaign is calling the recent development fake news despite the information revealed by Miami University, Pedicini said, “That’s all I got for you right now.”
The term “fake news” works as any other propaganda tool: a pair of quick one-syllable words that seem intuitive but are not. The term means what the accuser wants them to mean, and tosses them around without any clear definition or follow-up that moves into specifics.
And when trouble pops in, the propagandist either doubles down or hopes to quietly slink away from the words spoken. The slinking by the propagandist happened in this case. (A look at Lexis-Nexis shows no more newspaper-published quotes from Pedicini about the race after that.)
The term “fake news” should fail as a propaganda tool when objective, black-and-white fact gets in the way. John Milton taught us that centuries ago in his Aeropagitica: “Let her [Truth] and Falshood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the wors, in a free and open encounter.”
On the company’s website is a collection of quotes about winning, including one from golfer Walter Hagan: “No one remembers who came in second.”
That may well be true in sports. But it ought not be true when it comes to media ethics, where journalists and PR practitioners ought to note practitioners who come in second when it comes to truth-telling.