The media

I read the following quote today about a performance review, it got me to thinking about how this concept has the ability to make or break anyone, particularly those in the public eye.

"For one performance review, I received a report that bore little resemblance to my own appraisal. So incongruent was its assessment of the quality of my work that I thought I had been sent the wrong review. As I glanced through the error-strewn missive, I was astonished by the ability of the author to conjure such a fictional narrative from so poorly informed points of history: innuendo, gossip, circumstantial evidence, gross inaccuracies, simple untruths and other cosmic distortions littered the document. I was confronted by invective masquerading as objective assessment. I stared at the offending document more in amazement than disbelief, but worried about how I might begin to extract myself from this hornet’s nest. I was gripped by a sense of impending doom, as if I were about to be hauled off to the Tower and my head impaled on a spike".              - Richard Hill

So how can this make or break a career? Well, unfortunately the media is a powerful source of information and distribution. And this is the main source of information for most of the public. Also, unfortunately, many people blindly follow what they read in the media. They recall the information that they hear and they take this word as truth. This is not always the case. The media are not always an accurate source of information. The media will generally only know small amounts of information or truth and from there they build their story. Therefore, we can not believe everything we read.



References:
Hill, R., http://keithlyons.me/personalising-performance-observations, viewed 16/4/2013