Should you correct a colleague or friend who spreads misinformation?
Ten years ago, I agreed to participate at a student journalism conference on a panel with other writers, editors and journalists. I knew several who were going to be on the panel. Each of us arrived in the early evening before the conference began and we spent some time catching up.
As we were all chatting, the organizer of the event joined us. She laid out what we should expect for the next couple of days. When she told the group I would be delivering the keynote address to all attendees the following day, it took me by surprise. I hadn’t prepared anything since I had no recollection of being asked to do this.
Nevertheless, I agreed to give it a go. I returned to my hotel room, took out my laptop, wrote up some notes, and prepared a few PowerPoint slides. The talk was supposed to be about the state of journalism ethics so I drew from past columns and perused a few books on ethics that I had referred to in the past in the column, while teaching or when giving a talk.
The next day went fine, until I put up one of the slides for the group, which was a quotation attributed to the German writer Goethe. I had lifted the quote from the opening of a chapter in a book on ethics an old colleague had recently published. One of the professors in attendance pointed out that he was pretty sure Goethe never wrote the words I posted and that the quotation didn’t sound at all like him. He was curious if I knew the source. Aside from it being featured in a friend’s book, I did not know the source. But I told him I would check.
When I pointed it out to my writer friend, she admitted that she didn’t know the source either but had seen the quote someplace and liked it so she used it. Like me, neither she nor her editor nor anyone else associated with the book had verified those words were actually Goethe’s. After the talk, I let the professor know and also asked the organizer to let the attendees know about my mistake.
Typically, I try to be vigilant about checking original sources for quotes that I see attributed to others to verify the person credited actually deserves the credit. This time I didn’t. I should have.
Now, when a friend or colleague posts a quotation on social media that I know to be incorrect, I take the time to point out to them that they might want to check their source. Usually, I text them or private message them. Most often they check the quote and take it down when it turns out to be wrong. Only once did someone, a K-12 educator, respond by letting me know he didn’t care since he liked the quote anyway.
There’s an old meme with a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.” While Lincoln obviously never said that, the message is strong. When we find quotations we like on the internet, rather than repost them right away, the right thing is to check to make sure the attribution is correct. Just as the internet is full of misattributed quotations, it’s also full of source material that should make checking our facts relatively simple.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
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