Ask the Hard Questions
Leadership failures require more from us to keep leaders honest and recreate trust.
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From Emily Bass, https://substack.com/@emilysbass/p-208593077
Two stories broke within days of each other. Either might be merely facepalm-worthy, but together, they show a disturbing pattern that’s important for us to recognize.
First, at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, a State Department official presented U.S. health agreements with African nations.
Of the six countries named - Nigeria, Mozambique, Uganda, Côte d'Ivoire, Malawi, and Cameroon - not one label pointed to the right place on their map. Attendees noticed instantly, and screenshots spread online within hours.
For example, countries on Africa’s west coast - Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire (also known as the Ivory Coast) - were shown as landlocked. In an analysis conducted by Reuters, they found the image carried an AI watermark from OpenAI.
While certainly embarrassing, the issue runs deeper - this from Reuters reporting: [1]
"Whoever created and approved this slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to check their work," wrote Matt Petit, who focuses on AI and geopolitics at the Atlantic Council, in the [Substack] post.
The department's explanation – blame the staff: a team member hastily altered the slide deck before the presentation.
But nobody on the State Department team caught it - not the maker of the map, not the reviewers, not the official presenting it to the very partners it misrepresented. A lesson in leadership was offered from AIDS expert Emily Bass, who first posted about the ill-crafted African map: [2]
I was disappointed to see the new US map of Africa - in the story I broke on July 26. I think I might be even more disappointed to see State Department leadership hanging responsibility on a staffer in this July 30 Reuters story.
Over two-plus decades of managing and leading teams I learned (sometimes the hard way) that it is vital to trust, morale and integrity to stop the buck and take the blame. It does not matter who made the slide/mistake/typo. Who led the team? Who gave the talk? Who put their name on the paper? It’s on that person. That’s leadership. Wherever you are on the map.
Meanwhile, D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office moved to dismiss its felony vandalism case against former Olympian David Hearn over damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
On July 2, Pirro told reporters Hearn had "forcefully and violently" vandalized the pool, waving off a question about pre-existing renovation problems by insisting she could prove it "beyond a reasonable doubt." [3]
Weeks later, her own office told the court the opposite: Park Service emails, dated before her press conference, already pointed to “contractor error via ‘overspray’,” and “it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.” [4]
Pirro now blames the Department of Interior for withholding that information.
The stories aren’t really about AI or a single prosecutor. The throughline is that the people running institutions that used to command our trust by default – they are proving that they no longer deserve that trust.
And we can no longer take what we are told at face value with the people currently in charge. Decades of trust are being eroded in record time.
Some mislabeled countries and a manufactured vandalism case aren't the same order of harm, but they share a root cause - people in positions that once meant something seem to no longer treat accuracy or telling the truth as their job.
So what do we do with that? We can’t despair, but we also can’t have blind faith either. While we shouldn’t have to, we have to stop taking the leaders of these institutions at their word by default.
Ask where the information came from, who checked it, and what happened between the confident press conference and the quiet court filing. Investigative reporters and the free press are doing exactly that, and we need to support them loudly and publicly.
It isn’t really cynicism. It's caring enough about the truth to keep asking, rather than assuming the people in charge already have. Institutions and their leaders can earn trust back over time - but only if someone keeps checking. Right now, that someone has to be us.
Notes and Sources
[1] Jessica Donati, “US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference,” Reuters, July 30, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/us-government-map-africa-mislabels-every-country-global-conference-2026-07-30/
[2] Emily Bass [@emilysbass], To End a Plague… Again, Substack, July 30, 2026, https://substack.com/@emilysbass/note/c-304759274
[3] Chris Geidner, “Jeanine Pirro's motion to dismiss the Reflecting Pool case is going to have ripple effects,” Law Dork, August 1, 2026, https://www.lawdork.com/p/jeanine-pirro-motion-to-dismiss-reflecting-pool
[4] United States of America v. David Hearn, Case No. 2026 CF2 10237, D.C. Superior Court, July 31, 2026, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28530213-hearn-motion-to-dismiss-073126/, p 19.
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