Credibility

Where does credibility come from? It is a big question that seems to turn up often these days. I don’t have the answer, but I can see in this weekend’s news stories some approaches that don’t work. Changing your public positions and opinions to ones that you think should sound more credible won’t make you more credible. Complaining about lost credibility won’t bring it back. After looking at these and other examples, it seems to me credibility starts with paying attention. Paying attention by itself is certainly not much, but if everyone can see that you have stopped paying attention, then there is nothing you say that can make you credible again.