Dirty tricks: a lesson in misdirection

Want an instant lesson in persuasive communication? Look no further than the scandal surrounding the leaked emails at the COP15 Climate Conference.

When hackers got hold of 10 years of email correspondence between a handful of scientists and then released a select few emails to the mass media, the headlines read: “Climategate: global warming is a hoax” – and a lot of newspapers were sold.

Few reporters, if any, read the sequence of 3,000 emails before leaping on the scandal angle. But now that investigators have read them, a different story is emerging.

Firstly, there is no evidence of a grand conspiracy of scientists rigging the data. There is, though, plenty of evidence of scientists questioning every hypothesis and looking for data that debunk as well as support their theories. Because that’s what scientists do. But the headline, “Scientists continue to test global climate change theory” would not sell newspapers.

In the emails, the scientists also discuss their concerns over industry-funded skeptics who misconstrue their work, distort their conclusions and harass their colleagues with requests for information that take them away from doing science. Not once in the correspondence do the scientists suggest faking the science. Why would they? They’d stand to gain nothing but the criticism of their scientific peers.

But these were not the emails that were released to the public. So, how did the scandal arise?

Tailoring information to get into the spotlight
The scandal is a classic example of misdirection. Simply take a small sample from an authoritative source and publish it as that authority’s opinion – if you dress it up as scandal or social injustice, you’ll grab more attention – and then tweak the message to support your own agenda.

In times of war, this is known as “propaganda”.

But it only works if you can conceal the larger body of evidence. In this case it was easy. While journalists would jump at the chance to read 100 emails between big Hollywood stars, they are less keen on wading through 3,000 emails between four obscure scientists.

The truth will come out
So what does this teach communications professionals? As communication experts, we know misdirection is a powerful tool of persuasion. But we also know it is deeply flawed: use it, and eventually the truth will come out, discrediting your whole communication.

Misdirection is a trick to spot in media stories and persuasive marketing campaigns – and something to avoid at all cost in your own communications.