As a young, promising but inexperienced business writer with a newly-minted English degree, it made a big impression on me when my then-boss picked up on a generalization I made without fact-checking, and introduced me to the phrase "measure twice and cut once." His point: we check, and double-check, and make sure that anything we say or publish is as accurate as possible. I've loved working in that environment all my life. I respect the fact that my colleagues share my commitment to dig down and look at all angles of an issue to make sure we are painting a legitimate picture of what we are communicating; that we are meticulous with details; that we are not misrepresenting information or situations.
I don't know what to make of the current climate. The game seems to have changed, so that persuasion by any means is applied to get to a "win." (Quotation marks intentional.) But I'm old-school on this one, and if you are, too, you're someone I want to know. After all, a house built on faulty angles cannot stand. That's why we measure, and measure again.
© 2018 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie
