The Attack on DEI

​A coordinated and well-funded campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has been underway since at least 2021, according to The New York Times – and corporate leaders are in the “culture war" crosshairs.
 
As leaders navigate rough waters this presidential election year, effective communications can help protect and manage reputations across stakeholders. Our DEI team recommends the following steps:

• Evaluate relevant policies, practices and programs from a risk-management and legal perspective. Leaders must understand their organization’s vulnerabilities and potential liabilities. A communications audit helps ensure internal and external messages are consistent.

• When making commitments, ground them in business strategy and default to company values and principles. Knee-jerk reactions can back you into a corner.

• Communicate within a divisive issues framework. Executing a decision-making process with respect to controversial topics and whether to communicate or act (or not), well ahead of an acute need, leads to confidence when the going gets tough.

• Any communication should take into account all stakeholders, but nothing will ever make everyone happy. It’s only natural to gravitate toward a middle ground on matters that are polarizing; however, many leaders have found that resisting this pull yields stronger outcomes – for both their reputation and the bottom line.

• And remember a core tenet of reputation management: don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary conditions.

To learn more about our DEI communications approach, please contact USDEITeam@FGSGlobal.com.

​With Congress still considering how to tackle AI legislation, state legislatures are looking to take the lead on regulating the technology—particularly as it pertains to protecting elections. 

According to Public Citizen’s latest State Legislation tracker, over 40 bills have been introduced this year to combat deepfake utilization in elections, after similar legislation passed last year in Minnesota, Washington and Michigan. Additionally, at least 15 state legislatures – including Kansas, Maryland, New Hampshire and Oklahoma – are holding hearings this month on bills that would regulate the use of AI in campaign communications.

But state activity is not just limited to election reform. On February 8th, California State Sen. Scott Weiner (D) put forward a sweeping set of regulations for AI models, proposing some of the most stringent rules for AI across the nation. It would require every major AI system to have a built-in emergency off-switch, among other restrictions. The bill is expected to get pushback from the tech industry.

Some in the industry, including Amazon’s General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Global Public Policy David Zapolsky, are warning against states creating a patchwork of regulations. But states will still likely need to act when it comes to protecting state and local elections, which are not covered by many congressional proposals.

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Media companies are backing away from the subscription model they initially turned to amid declining advertising revenue, according to recent reporting from Axios.

Our colleagues at the Health Media Insights newsletter report how some outlets, such as The Washington Post and The Atlantic, are taking more flexible approaches to their paywalls and subscription pricing. And outlets such as Time and Quartz are dropping their digital paywalls altogether to focus on ad-supported content or to adopt a membership model.

The fine print: Some trade outlets have found more success with subscriptions aimed at niche audiences. An example in the healthcare sectior: STAT, Endpoints News and Modern Healthcare.

The bottom line: Staying abreast of how outlets make their content available is an important component of working with them. Reporters working at outlets with paywalls have said they need to motivate readers to pay for the coverage by creating content a reader can’t find elsewhere. That means they’re on the lookout for exclusive interviews or opportunities to dig a layer deeper into an issue or an organization’s strategy.

Bonus reading: The shift away from hard paywalls is notable in light of the shuttering of short-lived media outlet The Messenger, whose dissolution has been attributed in part to its reliance on digital advertising.

To sign up for Health Media Insights, email health@fgsglobal.com.