The Power of Words

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

I live near Denver, Colorado and watch some local news on Channel 9.  Countless times I've watched Marty Coniglio give his weather forecast. He has been with the station for 16 years. Like many in journalism, Coniglio is active on Twitter. Last week, he sent out a tweet comparing federal troops to Nazis. Here's the details in the Denver Post article. He is no longer employed at the station. As I read the story, it reminded me that our words have power.

The Danger of A Habit

As a reader, I have been reading and listening to books for years. Each time I write a short review (normally less than 150 words) and post my review on Amazon and Goodreads. I've written over 1,000 Amazon reviews and over 600 reviews on Goodreads (where I have 5,000 friends and my reviews get a lot of attention and reading). I read and listen to many different types of books. Recently I listened to part of a bestselling book—which was filled with hatred (in my view every sentence). As an editor, I often evaluate a book based on a short portion. In this case, I decided not to listen to the rest of the book and wrote that information into my short review. I followed my habit and posted the review on Amazon and Goodreads. There are hundreds of reviews for this book and my review joined those reviews.

The final portion of my habit is to post my review with the cover on social media. I have over 200,000 Twitter followers, over 18,900 connections on LinkedIn and over 4900 Facebook friends. I didn't think about my posting because it is a habit. The reaction surprised me but I should have known when I did it. I spent about 48 hours on Facebook monitoring, deleting and even blocking some people (when you have 4,900 “friends” it is no big personal loss to block some people). My short post was consuming way too much energy and time. I deleted the post on all of my social media platforms. In a few minutes, it was gone. Did lots of people see it? Yes and I learned even with a habit to think about each post.

I temporarily forgot some critical things about the Internet and social media. While you may be writing the material for yourself, other people read it. part of the social media process is other people are going to respond and react to whatever you said. Also these words are often out online forever. In this volatile, on-edge world, common sense reminds of the small talk advice: “avoid religion and politics.” It also applies to our social media. From this experience, I was reminded our words matter. In fact, our words have power and people read them. It's good to use caution and wisdom with what you put online.

As you write today, be aware your words have power to heal or to harm. Let me know your thoughts about this subject in the comments below.

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Tired of Politics?

News organizations are in the final push of 21 days until the presidential election. In some regards, I've been tired of reading about the political scene for weeks. The printed election ads are stuffed into my mailbox and dominate the news media.

Political science was one of my majors (along with journalism) for my undergraduate work. I've had a life-long interest in politics and studied it for many years. I take many different magazines and groaned to see the thick October 13th issue of The New Yorker covered politics.

Yet I found the issue fascinating and read it cover to cover. The range of stories and depth of coverage was well worth the reading time. If you don't get the magazine, I encourage you to pick it up on your news stand and read it because the diversity will surprise you.

In particular, I want to encourage you to read The Oracle, The many lives of Arianna Huffington which is available online. Lauren Collins has written an in depth-profile of Huffington and the New Yorker does a masterful job of showing the diversity in her personality and experiences. Even the photograph of Huffington (also online) is revealing. Notice she's holding her Blackberry--and the article tells us that it is one of three that she uses constantly. I love the varied picture of Huffington that you gain reading this story. She's not perfect (none of us are). Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, you can gain something for your writing life if you study these types of personality profiles.

Finally no matter who you are supporting for the Presidential Election, I encourage you to be praying for the results. I've started using the daily emails from the Presidential Prayer Team. My only objection is the small print they are using for their web page. Each day, I've been cutting and pasting the material into a Word document then increasing the size of the typeface so it can be easily read. I've appreciated the focus of the prayers and connection to Scripture--and hopefully you will as well.

Like many seasons, we will soon move into something different for the news media focus.