According to the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics, “professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility”. However in today’s highly charged political atmosphere that cornerstone seems to have crumbled and has thus weakened our entire national foundation. Our politicians and leaders blatantly lie and deceive us on such a regular basis that it has now become our national pastime to see who can tell the biggest lie and get away with it.
Accordingly when one uses the term “creditability” when speaking in terms of the quality of being trusted; we are actually referring to “the government’s loss of credibility”.
In his 1925 book “Mein Kampf” Adolph Hitler states in chapter six of volume one “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”. This factor played heavily in his ability to convince the German people to blindly follow him to their destruction. Therefore credibility refers to the “objective and subjective” components of the “believability” of a source or message.
Traditionally speaking especially in this modern sense, credibility has two key components: 1) trustworthiness and 2) expertise, both of course have “objective” and “subjective” components. It is how the message is conveyed that really makes the difference in how the message is received.
In the recent “Domain hijacking” by several so called members of this organization which were entrusted to act on behalf of the membership at large, this domain theft and the act of changing the registration of a domain name without the permission of its original registrant, that being this organization, will have far reaching consequences in our efforts to get this organization on its feet.This can be financially devastating to the original domain name holder, US, who may have derived much needed membership income from a website hosted at the domain or conducted business through that domain's e-mail accounts.
Additionally, these hijackers can use the domain name to facilitate illegal activity such as phishing, where a website is replaced by an identical website that records private information such as log-in passwords etc. Thank God that these “Buffoons“ got the horse before the cart and jumped the gun, thereby shooting themselves in the foot!
Trustworthiness is based more on subjective factors, but can include objective measurements such as established reliability. These “Three Amigos” certainly exhibited their trustworthiness with their actions and are now exposed as the very type of individuals who are not reliable and who that have plagued our industry for decades and which were the very type of people for which we all wanted to organize to rid our industry of! Now is the time to take that action and throw the subject on the table for discussion! It’s time to put a stop to “Chuck and his Truck” and get unlicensed and uncertified contractors out of the marketplace so that we can gain the confidence of the public and our customers. In short we need to clean up our image.
Expertise can be similarly subjectively perceived, but also includes relatively objective characteristics of the source or message (e.g., credentials, certification or information quality). It is now up to us to grab hold of that golden ring and develop the proper credentials and certifications required to make this a viable and objective organization that we can all be proud. Please do not think in terms of awarded titles and acronyms that one must pay an annual fee for the right to use these “Phony” certifications.
Secondary components of credibility include source dynamism (charisma) and physical attractiveness. We have that! All its going to take is for those of you that believe in our original goals to stand up and take control. We need to show this industry that it is possible to have charisma and guts to fight for our causes both at the same time. For those of you that don’t think you have the intestinal fortitude to carry this banner maybe you might be better suited to join in with the Hijackers and hope for the best!
Credibility online has become an important topic since the mid-1990s. This is because the web has increasingly become an information resource. It has also become a double edged sword that if not used properly can be just as devastating!
Scientific credibility, unlike what has been described above has been defined as the extent to which science in general is recognized as a source of reliable information about the world.
This term, scientific, has also been applied more narrowly, as an assessment of the credibility of the work of an individual scientist or a field of research. Here, the phrase refers to how closely the work in question adheres to scientific principles, such as the scientific method. The method most commonly used to assess the quality of science is peer review and then publication as part of the scientific literature. Unfortunately for us we don’t have the benefit of the “Scientific Method” at our disposal and use. It would make our jobs much easier in the long term.
What we do have available however, is the use of “Street credibility”. Of particular importance is the rise of this phenomenon in recent years with the advent of popular “hip-hop” music and its sub-culture of “Gangsta-Rap” as one vehicle to gain some respectability. We certainly don’t need the negative consequences and baggage that goes along with this identity, but there is no reason why we cannot adopt the methods used to convey our message.
There is also another message and perhaps a lesson to be learned by the likes of those who had the audacity to stand up for a cause like the “TEA Party” that by their own efforts have made enormous strides in changing the political atmosphere in this county.
Think about what we set out to accomplish! What is at the very tips of our fingers? Is this something that you can take part in with the hope that someday it will benefit us all or is it just a pipe dream that we all had a glance at but can’t bring ourselves to become a member because we are no longer joiners?
I believe if enough people hear our message that it will become a reality and one day we will all look back and say “Thanks” to the “The Three Amigos” who got us stoked up enough to do something!
Spencer K. Smartt, Founder
The National Association of Contractors and Remodelers of America
March 10th, 2013 – Dallas, TX.
