Welcome, Facebook friends (and my
regular readers). I’ve invited my Facebook friends to view a message here about
a particular concern regarding what is happening in our society today, but since
what I have to say is too long for Facebook and not right for that platform, I’ve
linked to my blog instead.
So, what am I concerned about?
Let’s just call it disinformation, but it’s much more than that. I’ve been
reading a book recently that is probably the most important book I’ve read in
years (and I read a lot). It is titled “The Constitution of Knowledge: A
Defense of Truth,” written by Jonathan Rauch, who is a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. Rauch and I
have something in common. He comes from the world of journalism, which he
describes as a world of ethics, truthfulness, and fact checking; of peer
reviewers and editors; of foundational values that have been institutionalized.
As for me, I retired earlier this year after working for 18 years as editorial
director at BYU Studies, a fully source-checked, peer-reviewed,
multidisciplinary scholarly journal. BYU Studies has very high editorial
standards. So I know a bit about how to find good sources of information and
how to recognize them. And I am concerned about many people I know who are
either receiving and believing bad information or, worse, passing it along.
So, what is this Constitution of
Knowledge that Rauch writes about? First and foremost, it is a system—a system of thought and
practice that helps us determine what the facts really are. It is supported by several
institutions that have won hard-fought battles in the work of determining what
is real or true and what is not. These institutions include journalism,
academia, the courts, law enforcement, science, and intelligence agencies. You
might say this is liberalism’s operating system, the social rules for turning
disagreement into knowledge. When I mention liberalism, I am not referring to a
political stance, but to our modern liberal order that provides a framework for
capitalism and democracy, an order that is depersonalized (not subject to the
whims of a dictator), decentralized (not controlled by one person’s or one
organization’s prejudices), and rules-based (the rules having been established
through hard-fought consensus).
This rules-based system for identifying
truth is under attack in our time. Specifically, it is under attack from one
particular politician. When you look at the institutions that Donald Trump and
his followers are trying to undermine, you see the fundamental institutions
that create and protect our system of establishing fact and reality:
journalism, science, intelligence agencies, academia, courts of law, law
enforcement. This is why Trump is so dangerous. In his narcissistic quest for
power, he is eager to tear down the very foundation of our republic, the shared
view of facts and reality that have held us together, sometimes barely, for 235
years. The fact that so many Americans are willing to buy into his project does
not bode well for our future, but there is hope.
Significantly, this rules-based
system for identifying truth is also under attack by social media. Much of the
disinformation that is spread through social media is not merely attempting to
get people to believe something that is untrue; it has a more devious aim. As
Rauch puts it, “The firehose of falsehood aims not to persuade but to confuse:
to induce uncertainty, disorientation, and attendant cynicism. A 2017 study found
that 10 percent to 20 percent of Americans believed fake news stories which
they were exposed to the year before; but for every gulled believer, two or
three more people were unsure what to believe.” This method of sowing distrust and
confusion was developed early in this century by Russian disinformation
operatives. “The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an
agenda,” said Russian dissident Gary Kasparov. “It is to exhaust your critical
thinking, to annihilate truth.” And since online sources of information are
free and plentiful—and
are not constrained by the ethical standards that guide real journalism—many people rely on
untrustworthy media for their view of the world and are thus discouraged and
misinformed.
This development dovetails with
the demise of the free press in our digital world. There is a reason freedom of
the press was enshrined in the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law . .
. abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” A free press is necessary
to rein in the tendencies of both government and big business to abuse their
power. But the press is under attack in our day, and not only by demagogues
like Trump who, echoing Stalin, declared that the press is “the enemy of the
people.” Newspapers have traditionally relied on advertising revenue to support
their journalistic mission. But with advertising dollars fleeing to online
platforms, newspapers are struggling to survive. Local papers are going out of
business in shocking numbers. And without local newspapers, local government is
much more at liberty to abuse its power. The same is true at the national
level.
So, my plea to you, my friends, is
to support credible journalism, and support it financially. A few years ago,
BYU Studies published an entire special issue (61.1) on good government. One
particular article in that issue was written by Ed Carter, journalism professor
and former director of the School of Communications at BYU, about how
journalism contributes to good government. I recommend this article for
everyone, but one particular paragraph had a great impact on me: “High-value
journalism today generally requires subscription payment. For decades in the
twentieth century, high-quality American journalism was largely supported by
advertising revenues. Editorial content appeared to be free. With the
introduction of the internet, news organizations initially made their editorial
content freely available online. Some legitimate news organizations still do.
However, digital advertising revenues today pale in comparison to the print
advertising revenues of the previous century. While there is freely available information
content via social media and other digital channels, the content produced by
reputable journalists generally requires subscription revenue. So, news
consumers who want to support good journalism should prepare to do so with
their wallets.”
I took his advice to heart. I
subscribe to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Salt Lake Tribune.
I also check the Deseret News website daily, since it is free (and I support it
through my church donations). I have also subscribed in the past to the New
Yorker magazine (which does sterling in-depth reporting as well as reputable
coverage of current events), and I have a short-term subscription to Mother
Jones (a fiercely independent magazine with no corporate ties). I do this not
only to support good journalism financially, but also because these
publications are good sources of reliable information. They follow the
journalistic code of ethics, which includes fact checking and issuing corrections
when they get something wrong. CNN also fact-checks its content (as well as
claims by political candidates) and issues on-air corrections. I find it ironic
but not surprising that Donald Trump criticized CNN for broadcasting a
retraction and even letting two employees go when one of its stories turned out
to be untrue. He used this as proof that CNN is “fake news,” when CNN was
actually doing what all reputable media outlets do when discovering a mistake.
The New York Times even invites readers to alert them to any factual errors
they may have published.
This is a hallmark of all
institutions that uphold the Constitution of Knowledge. The system for
establishing truth that has evolved over centuries and that is now under attack
is self-correcting. Science, journalism, academia, the legal system, the
intelligence community—they
all consider themselves fallible and arrive at truth by opening their claims to
challenge. As Rauch puts is, “They understand that their claims will and must
be challenged; they anticipate those challenges and respond; they subject their
scholarship to peer review and replication, their journalism to editing and
fact-checking, their legal briefs to adversarial lawyers, their intelligence to
red-team review.” But this whole system is under attack. I found it sobering
that the publisher of the New York Times felt the need to write an editorial
that appeared in the past week in the Washington Post, warning about the
possibility that the U.S. might follow countries like Hungary and India in
losing freedom of the press. We are already partway down that path.
So, if you are getting your
information on current events from social media, please stop. There are no
guardrails for this content. And if you are watching Fox News, please break the
habit. Fox News is not just not credible; it is dangerously dishonest. If you
are not financially able to support good journalism through subscriptions, here
are a couple of decent free sources. Boston College history professor Heather
Cox Richardson sends out a daily email titled “Letters from an American,” in
which she covers the news of the day as well as pertinent events that happened
in history on that date. She often calls out disinformation and puts today’s
events in a historical context, and she always lists sources at the bottom of
each email so you can check her facts yourself or get more detailed information.
For public health information, especially about COVID and vaccine-related issues,
Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist, sends out a twice-weekly, fact-based email
titled “Your Local Epidemiologist.” She summarizes data that most of us don’t
know where to find.
There are many other sources, but
please, please support good journalism and reputable media. It is too easy to
fall into the disinformation trap in today’s world. What use is the
Constitution’s protection of freedom of the press if American citizens do not read
what that free press is publishing? The Washington Post’s official slogan is
certainly true: “Democracy dies in darkness.”
