Dambudzo Chibwe Mavhunga
NOT so long ago, a communications practitioner’s greatest concern was ensuring that tomorrow’s newspaper carried the organisation’s side of the story. If a crisis emerged, there was usually enough time to gather the facts, brief management, prepare a statement and engage journalists before public opinion became entrenched. The news cycle moved at a pace that allowed accuracy to compete with speculation.
A rumour can circle the country in minutes. A manipulated video can reach thousands before breakfast. An artificial intelligence-generated voice recording can trigger panic long before anyone has asked whether it is genuine. Increasingly, parody social media accounts are announcing appointments, policy decisions and organisational developments before official corporate channels have even begun drafting a response. Whether those posts are true or false almost becomes secondary; what matters is that they have captured public attention first.
For those of us working in Public Relations, this represents one of the greatest professional challenges of our time. We have entered an era in which the speed of information has overtaken the speed of verification, and organisations are finding themselves in a constant race to reclaim narratives that have already escaped them.
There is an uncomfortable truth that many people are still reluctant to accept: we have witnessed the death of implicit trust.
There was a time when information carried an assumption of credibility simply because it appeared in print or on a recognised platform. That assumption no longer exists. Today, a beautifully designed website, a professional-looking social media page or even a convincing video offers little assurance of authenticity. AI has blurred the line between reality and fabrication so effectively that seeing is no longer believing.
The consequence is that trust can no longer be passive. It has become something that must be earned repeatedly and verified constantly. If you cannot immediately establish where a piece of information originated, who published it and whether the organisation concerned has confirmed it, then perhaps the safest position is not to believe it at all.
This changing environment has fundamentally altered the role of the communications professional. Public Relations has always been about managing relationships, protecting reputation and building trust. Today, however, practitioners are increasingly becoming custodians of truth itself.
Many people still associate Public Relations with media releases, speeches and corporate events. In reality, modern practitioners spend much of their time monitoring online conversations, identifying misinformation, advising executives, preparing crisis responses and helping organisations navigate a digital landscape where reputational threats emerge every hour. The irony is that false information often requires only a few seconds to create, while establishing the truth can take hours.
This imbalance explains why parody accounts have become so influential. Zimbabwe, like many other countries, has seen the rise of social media pages that imitate government institutions, corporate brands and prominent individuals with remarkable sophistication. Some have accumulated significant followings, and on more than one occasion they have published information before official accounts. Sometimes those announcements later prove accurate, which only strengthens their perceived credibility. At other times they are completely fabricated, forcing organisations into unnecessary crisis management exercises.
The real danger lies not in the existence of parody accounts themselves but in what they reveal about public behaviour. Increasingly, people are less concerned with whether information is official than whether it is first. Speed has become a substitute for credibility, and that should concern every organisation.
AI has accelerated this problem. The same technology that enables communicators to analyse data, improve productivity and create compelling content can also produce convincing deepfakes, cloned voices and fabricated videos that are almost impossible to distinguish from reality. What once required sophisticated technical expertise can now be achieved with widely available digital tools.
This is why deepfakes should no longer be viewed as merely a technological curiosity. They represent a genuine governance and reputational risk. Every organisation should begin treating synthetic media in much the same way it treats cybersecurity threats or financial fraud. Boards need to ask whether their organisations have the capability to detect manipulated content, verify official communications rapidly and respond before misinformation becomes accepted as fact.
Technology alone, however, will not solve this problem. While software capable of detecting manipulated images and videos continues to improve, the stronger defense lies in organisational credibility. Institutions that have consistently communicated honestly, admitted mistakes when necessary and engaged stakeholders transparently are far more likely to be believed during moments of uncertainty than those that communicate only when crises occur.
In many respects, credibility has become the most valuable corporate asset. Products can be copied, marketing campaigns can be replicated and technologies quickly become obsolete. Trust remains one of the few competitive advantages that cannot easily be imitated. Once it is lost, every future communication is viewed through a lens of suspicion, making reputation recovery an expensive and often lengthy process.
The communications profession therefore finds itself at an important crossroads. We are no longer simply storytellers or media managers. We have become guardians of authenticity in an increasingly synthetic world. Our value is measured not by how quickly we communicate but by how confidently people believe what we say.
This demands a different mindset from both organisations and practitioners. Corporate communication strategies should priorities verification as much as visibility. Official digital platforms should be clearly authenticated, crisis communication protocols regularly tested and employees equipped with the skills to recognise misinformation before sharing it. Digital literacy is no longer a desirable competency; it is becoming an organizational necessity.
People will always search for a source they can trust. That is why credibility has become the defining currency of our time. Organisations that invest in building and protecting it will be far better equipped to withstand the inevitable waves of misinformation than those that rely solely on speed or visibility.
l Mavhunga is a seasoned Communication and Public Relations practitioner. She is currently the stakeholder manager at Zimbabwe Association of Business communicators (ZABC).