Have too many of us lost the ability to think critically? Maybe. One of the toughest challenges that we face is finding and agreeing on common, evidence-based facts. We’ll never agree on the truth until we can do that. Public engagement requires a collective, common understanding of information – thus the Inform level of the IAP2 public participation Spectrum. When news is the source of information, consumers need to parse out what they’re reading, seeing or hearing, which requires a level of literacy. My longtime pal Michelle Olson is the 2021 chair of the Public Relations Society of America.