Directors’ Series

Popular wisdom has it that we are living in the Age of Post Truth. The issue is not the sole preserve of the media and politicians. In the world of business, investors are confirming their growing reliance on information other than that contained in financial reports. The bigger question is the reliability of the growing array of corporate information being released to the public.

Our recent Directors’ Series event addressed a number of the underlying causes in the loss of confidence in public information and the issues it poses for audit committees and boards as a whole. We invite you to view the below clips that highlight the panel’s key messages around the topic and questions surrounding it.

Social media is crowding out the news as we know it. As our lead-off panelist,Ed Greenspon, President of the Public Policy ‘forum, puts it, the evolving eco-system is “truth-neutral”. Advertisers reward the number of clicks and size of audience, not the facts. Society’s control systems have not caught up and misinformation circulates freely.

During our live session, we asked our audience of Directors ‘How relevant is the Post Truth Era to the world of corporate governance and to Canadian Boards?’. As you can see from the results below, our audience clearly see this ‘Post Truth Era’ topic as relevant to governance and to Canadian boards.

If you would like to view the complete version of The Post Truth Era broadcast, please contact us at directorsseries@deloitte.ca.