Talleyrand, among history’s most adroit diplomats, observed that “the masses want to believe in something, and nothing is so easy than to arrange the facts for their benefit.” As access to the means of creating and disseminating information has grown, so too has the appetite and capacity for people, parties and organizations to arrange facts for the “benefit” of the public.
Implicit in Talleyrand’s statement is the notion that people are especially receptive to viewing information as facts when it conforms to preconceived notions or beliefs in search of reinforcement. And that tendency will be exploited more persistently as AI-powered algorithms emerge as an ever more powerful tool to manipulate information and further enable people to easily find information that confirms what they already believe to be true. If so, how do we as a society foster a basic level of agreement on and respect for what is considered factual?
Walter Cronkite, reporting in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive of 1968, returned to the United States, and on the most-watched evening news program in America, broadcast his opinion that the United States was at a stalemate in Vietnam and negotiation was the most likely way to end the war. His view was a significant factor in turning public opinion away from supporting the war. This was possible because there were relatively few national news outlets, which enjoyed a greater level of trust among the public as purveyors of the truth. Indeed, Cronkite was called the most trusted man in America — a quaint notion in today’s cultural climate.
It will be difficult to restore waning public trust in institutions that generate knowledge and disseminate information. But there are measures that can further that process, including decoupling knowledge generation and dissemination from ideological agendas. When those generating knowledge shift into advocacy for ideological purposes, thus having a stake in how that knowledge is used, credibility suffers. Think tanks aligned with a political ideology have credibility primarily with those who share their perspective. Research sponsored by philanthropists or corporations with a definitive point of view is received skeptically if the public is aware of the source of funding (e.g., George Soros on the left and Charles Koch on the right). News outlets must as best they can prevent opinion, conjecture and political leanings from bleeding into the hard news. Podcasters and social media, including platforms such as TikTok, represent sources that are increasingly turned to for news, especially by youth and younger adults. They represent an especially challenging medium for curtailing misinformation and blatant falsehoods, with AI-generated material rendering oversight even more difficult.
Unfortunately, the information sector more closely resembles an adversarial system with different sides battling for the hearts and minds of the public rather than institutions making a good faith effort to determine what is most likely factual and reporting it as such. The perception, if not reality, is that in some cases, bias is not only present but intentional. This situation is rendered even more concerning when the current presidential administration appears determined to subject institutions — especially education, law and media — that present information or take positions not sympathetic to its agenda and narrative, to administrative harassment, often with the threat of civil or criminal actions that threaten their very existence. This further chills the incentive for institutions to be honest brokers of ideas, information and knowledge.
For example, climate research overwhelmingly points to human behavior as the primary driver of a warmer planet. The implications of accepting that truth are significant: namely, individuals must make lifestyle changes and nations must rethink their energy policies regarding how energy is produced and consumed. That has generated fierce resistance in the United States led by President Donald Trump, who continues to refer to climate change as a hoax, demonstrated most recently in his presentation at the United Nations, where he said, “This ‘climate change,’ it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” Yet, President Trump has never cited a shred of evidence to support his demonstrably false position. Americans should hold him and those who echo this claim accountable, demanding to see the evidence on which it is based. Which brings us to an underappreciated point: the role of the public in separating fact from fiction.
The public should accept its responsibility in determining what comes to be accepted as factual through the information that it wants and sometimes demands. It is a large segment of the public, after all, that rewards more ideologically based platforms for pushing a point of view — sometimes a patently false one — rather than presenting the best evidence available on any given issue. Indeed, arguably the primary reason for the popularity of major podcasters, webcasters and other streamers on the Internet is their provocative broadcasts whose purpose is often to reinforce beliefs rather than inform their listeners and viewers. The “provider-consumer” dynamic creates a cyclical process where people want information that validates their views. Information suppliers, ever attuned to viewer preferences, feed that desire, reinforcing consumers’ beliefs, which in turn rewards decisions to provide even more of what audiences want. And when the public’s thirst for confirmation and validation supersedes its thirst for truth, facts become merely another term for whatever people choose to believe.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously stated that people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. If we are to create a common currency as to what constitutes facts, it will require a restoration of trust in the scientific community, the media and government. Absent that, it will become ever easier to pass off misinformation, including blatant falsehoods, as facts that further ideological agendas, resulting in greater cultural and political polarization sprouting from separate realities as people choose their own facts and the politicians and policies that reflect them.
Much to the detriment of our country, the greatest casualty in the battle of competing realities is a citizenry more inflamed than informed, and the absence of sensible, fact-based government decisions and policies that serve the common good.
James Cramer is president emeritus of The School for Field Studies and was executive director for corporate affairs at the University of Maryland Global Campus.
