The word “misremembering” has been in the news a lot recently.  Brian Williams, anchor of NBC news got into a lot of trouble by “misremembering” that the chopper that he was flying in was hit by enemy fire (it was not).   Mr. Williams repeated the story over a period of years and the details of that experience and interesting anecdotes of his involvement with other military missions grew.  Ultimately it all came crashing down (pardon the pun) when US military personnel clarified that his recollections were not accurate or true.  Brian Williams admitted that he was guilty of misremembering and others said he had been lying.  It is widely accepted that human memory is not perfect and most people can relate to the concept of misremembering.  To misremember details is quite common, to embellish a story is common but to misremember something such as being shot at, in a crash or connected to something important in a way that is simply not factual – well something else may be at play.  Misremembering, embellishment, lying – what is the difference?  The difference is not really, “the degree” of inaccuracy  but perhaps rather the intent.  To embellish facts to make them more interesting is one thing but to retell stories in a way that changes the who, what, where and when (the corner stone of any story) well that simply isn’t good journalism, as it is no longer factual.  Why one would share inaccurate information would fall into the following categories:  they really do not know the difference, they wanted to make the story work for their own purposes or they want to deceive.  We rely on journalist for accuracy and for that reason, the misremembering has caught the attention of millions.   We live in a world where information is manipulated constantly so as affect our understanding and beliefs and to support corporate interests and sadly this is true in the senior care sector…. think about it.

Ann