Berea Mayor Cyril Kleem launched a misinformation campaign in the 2021 Berea elections. This is how it works.
Timeline of Kleem's Misinformation Campaign:
Kleem endorsed candidate, Kim Smith, sends out a mailer. The mailer implies her opponent received an endorsement from a radical politically biased organization.
Kleem endorsed candidate, Bernadett Butler, sends out a mailer. The mailer states her loyalty to the police.
Mayor Kleem sends out a Facebook post. The post states that certain candidates have “troubling ideas.”
These public actions are followed with a postcard sent to a select group of sympathetic voters. The postcard asks the reader to accost Erika Coble, Mary Brown, and Daune Jaynes telling them that “abolishing the police is a bad idea.” The problem is none of these candidates want to abolish the police.
The Big Lie
The intention of Kleem’s campaign is clear. Link the candidates to an unpopular view of “abolish the police.” However, no candidate advocates for or expresses this view. In fact, all candidates for city council are on record supporting our local police force.
The front of the mailer states, “Tell City Council candidates Mary Brown, Daune Jaynes and Erika Coble that ‘Abolish the Police’ is a bad idea!” This unambiguously implies the lie that Mary, Daune, and Erika want to “abolish the police.” It also asks the reader to take action on this lie.
Unfortunately, this is what happened. One recipient of the Mayor’s postcard confronts a city council candidate. The recipient yelled at her saying she “hates the police” circling her and calling her a liar. He stopped a car in the middle of the road to tell the occupants that she hates the police, and they should not vote for her. Consequently, he did what the mayor asked him to.
The Lie at Work
Misinformation campaigns need a factual link to anchor the lie. Mayor Kleem utilizes convoluted logic for this goal. His postcard states the CCPC endorsed these candidates. But, the CCPC does not support abolishing the police. However, a supporter of the CCPC posted an event on their Facebook page that supports the idea. The mayor implied that these city council candidates had to answer for a video posted on the Facebook of a supporter, of a supporter, of the candidates’ campaign. Kleem is sophisticated enough to know the details would be lost, or not even read. Voters would believe his lie.
Mayor Kleem dishonestly couches his accusations simply as “concerns.” He then distances himself from his accusation writing that “I don’t know if these candidates agree with the radical view of “abolish the police.” Granted, this is done in a much smaller font on the back of the postcard. The tactic allows the mayor to play both sides of the issue, propagating a lie while seeming like he’s just looking for information.
Problem With Confronting Misinformation
The misinformation attack by Kleem is sophisticated and has many layers. The first set of information never reveals the “troubling” views of his opponents. This is intentional. It primes the intended audience and leaves an unease perception on the general population. They wonder “what are these troubling views.” It’s open-ended letting us impose any view we may find troubling or scary on the candidate.
Mayor Kleem sent the postcards to a selected, small audience. Kleem knows this group will amplify and exaggerate his lie giving it more potency. Let the group spread the lie so people hear things from multiple sources. Confirm their worst fears. As the lie spreads, details will be lost. Next, the mayor will distance himself from the exaggerated lie. He will appear to take a rational middle ground.
The template Kleem uses allows him to give credibility to the lie and lets him distance himself from the lie he created. His opponents are on the defensive. They must answer for a fictitious controversy sucking up all the oxygen.
How We Faught the Misinformation
Misinformation campaigns rely on the perception that “the truth is somewhere in the middle.” This means fighting misinformation head-on only spreads the lie. Confronted with correct information, an average person assumes the other side has some valid points. They split the difference believing a lie that is less extreme.
That is why we did not address the controversy head-on. Our strategy was to attack the intentions of mayor Kleem. Mayor Kleem wants to turn Berea’s politics toxic and ensure the voting electorate believes the lies he was selling.
We also had to deal with another issue. The three candidates the mayor attacked signed “Berea’s Good Government Pledge.” Sticking to the pledge, prevented these candidates from “fighting fire with fire.” This is a standard response to misinformation campaigns. Engaging this way can be politically advantageous, but it further divides us and is corrosive to democracy. Lies beget more lies. We need a different approach that would be effective but not destructive.
We focused on specific wording he used in his mailer- specifically “Tell City Council Candidates Mary Brown, Daune Jaynes, and Erika Coble that ‘abolishing the police’ is a bad idea.” These words sent out by the mayor were a specific call to action. He asks people to accost city council candidates. Mayor Kleem wants to lean into people’s fears and divide our city. This allowed us to address the destructive nature of the lie without spreading and amplifying it. This tactic works to put the Mayor and his endorsed candidates on the defensive.
We wrote an opinion piece called “Berea’s Most Dangerous Moms”. The piece was critical of the mayor and his candidates revealing the reasons why he might not want these women on City Council. The tongue-in-cheek style entertained while calling out the actions of the mayor.
The End Result
Our attempt to push back against mayor Kleem’s disinformation campaign paid off. Kleem’s endorsed candidates lost. Kim Smith lost with 284 votes (42%) to Erika Coble’s 406 (59%). Kim was the incumbent. Bernadette Buller lost. Gene Zacharyasz (the incumbent) received 1,743 votes, Mary Brown received 1,471 while Bernadette Butler received 1,326 votes. The top two (Gene and Mary) would fill the two council-at-large seats on city council.
The Mayor’s candidates lost due in part to the mayor’s actions. It is our hope that this sends a clear signal that this type of campaigning will no longer be successful in Berea.
Did we use Misinformation to fight Misinformation?
Mayor Kleem and his allies claim Berea News engaged in misinformation. They take issue with the opinion article Berea’s Most Dangerous Moms. This article talks about an interaction between Kim Smith and Omni Corp. What happens in this interaction is unknown; it was a private telephone conversation. Kim Smith provides her version of the story in a city council meeting when asked if she had interaction with Omni Corp. She offered an innocent explanation and provided little details. The opinion piece frames the interaction as Smith being offered an “undisclosed sum” in a “secret agreement”. This inference was drawn from facts presented at a city council meeting.
While Kim Smith recused herself from voting on the Omni project. This was done on the advice of the city’s legal counsel. However, most of the members of city council were unaware of her recusal or the legal memo. Conveniently, the legal memo was emailed out to the city council only after Smith was confronted at the meeting.
Based on the evidence, it seems reasonable to imply there was some type of agreement; Omni was going to offer a sum of money for Smith’s property. There is no first-hand knowledge to back this up. Smith disputes this version of events. The article clearly did not report Kim Smith’s side of the story. However, the article was marked as an opinion piece and the inference was justified. When dealing with incomplete information we rely on reasonable inferences. If the sidewalk is wet in the morning we can infer that it rained last night.
It is worth noting that Kim Smith has been respectful and professional both on city council and in person. This is in stark contrast with her alignment with Mayor Kleem who has worked to campaign for her. We do not know how much foreknowledge Kim had of Kleem’s misinformation campaign. Nor do we know if Kim privately pushed back against the mayor. In either event, we have offered to print any response by Kim Smith or her allies as an opinion piece in the Berea News.
Conclusion
Misinformation is toxic and corrosive to our democracy. We need a well-informed public to be successful as a city. Berea has demonstrated that it rejects this type of campaigning. We hope future Berea politicians are listening. Berea Kind.
