FLINT DILLE’S GAME THEORY: Destroy Fake News In Three Days

Best way to defeat fake news: age it for 3 Days.

If you don’t believe me, I’ve got a little experiment you can do at the bottom of the doc.

In other words, don’t counter the taunt tweet that got you all flamed up 10 minutes that started ‘Did Donald Trump just…(insert shocker here)?’

Let it age. Respond to the latest flamepost with, ‘let’s revisit this in three days.’

What can the flamer say? In the world of fake news and endless bogus ‘shock’/’breaking’ stories, it is a reasonable request. You probably already fell for ‘pull my finger’ too many times and you’re not obligated to do it again.

Unless you are a policy maker who has to make a decision in less than three days, what’s the hurry?

Why three days? Before the internet, there was a tradition in California called, ‘Dirty Thursday.’ Dirty Thursday, perhaps invented by Richard Nixon, was the last day that political operatives could drop an ‘explosive story’ and leave no time for correction before election day on Tuesday. It worked for Barbara Boxer when her operatives dropped, “Should the voters of California elect someone who frequently travels the strip joints of Hollywood?” on her opponent Bruce Herschensohn.

In the dead-heat race, Hershensohn could not correct the story (he had been to the 7 Veils once with his wife) by Tuesday, November 3, 1992, and lost. Did it tip the race? Some think so.

However, a little over a decade later, when the L.A. Times dropped unsubstantiated 25 year-old groping stories against Arnold Schwarzeneggar on Dirty Thursday, the story was countered, Grey Davis was recalled and the Governator was elected.

What changed?

The internet. The L.A. Times hadn’t factored in the increased velocity of news cycles. The groping stories were eaten up, swallowed and excreted by election day.

We can debate how long a news cycle is now, but we can all agree that three days is a lot of news cycles. Everybody has a chance to hear the story, respond to the story, investigate the story, create context (frame) the story and the story evolves a great deal in 3 Days.

Therefore, talking about a story 3 Days after it breaks is far more valid than reacting to it when it drops. Fake news drops, is exposed to sunlight, dries up and blows away in three days.

In three days fake news rots. It isn’t built to last through hourly internet cycles, it’s about making the impression right now, supporting the narrative and, more than anything, keeping the Dopamine hit going.

By insisting on 3 days, you end up with a conversation that is less about Dopamine and more about the underlying issue.

Now… Head out onto social media, Twitter, Facebook or wherever you best access Fake News and write down the top stories right now.

Write them down or copy the links.

Put a tickler on your calendar to check out the three stories in three days.

How many of the stories are still worth talking about? What happened ot the ones that aren’t?