I still fondly recall spending my high school Study Hall periods back in the mid-1970’s buried in The New York Times. I credit my daily immersion in the news of the day with teaching me far more than I was learning in my classes, and it also awakened my lifelong love of studying national and cultural histories. 

The editorial choices made by the newspaper’s editors and publisher during that relatively more innocent time were certainly intended to impart a more liberal world view, but a commitment to demonstrable fact and a more balanced presentation were sill the journalistic norms of that time period, although the Watergate years demonstrated an openly partisan bloodlust that presaged the beginnings of the wildly skewed coverage that now dominates our coverage of current events and historical analysis.

Today we barely have news; instead, we have frothing narratives intended to attack enemies and comfort allies. Any event, policy, comment, or facial expression can now be spun into story lines that have only the most tenuous connection with discernible facts and function as partisan bludgeons or blinders. The only “fact” we can be sure to know is that, depending on the political leanings of the writer or outlet, the very same ideas and events will either save us from doom or utterly destroy us all—there is no middle ground anymore. Whether we are discussing the Presidencies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, illegal immigration, government spending, education, medical care, policing, economic development, the environment, or virtually any other issue imaginable, the information, analyses, and predictions presented will vary so greatly that distinguishing between fact and fiction will be nearly impossible.

We saw a telling example of this bizarre dichotomy over the past few years as, depending on the information source, President Biden was either a indefatigable dervish whom his staff could barely keep up with or a drooling and demented figurehead who was barely cognizant. As we are now belatedly discovering, the truth tended more to the latter, and he was, in fact, a sad and shuffling old man manipulated by ambitious staff members and his ruthless wife, but “news” designed to deceive hid this truth from the American people for far too long and put the safety and security of our nation at grave risk.

We are seeing this yet again with the protests against the Trump administration’s efforts to deport illegal immigrants. Depending on the source, we are witnessing either joyful and largely peaceful civil disobedience or insurrectionist riots that are targeting law enforcement and spreading anarchy throughout our country’s cities. A quick browse through news and information sites finds that both interpretations are prominently featured—yet utterly at odds with one another. This is perhaps the best example we today have of “news” coverage meant to influence and obfuscate rather than inform, and it highlights the disturbing and dangerous fact that much of what we are told to believe is based on increasingly outrageous and shameless lies.

News that is nonsense is a problem that has always been with us to some degree. Newspapers, radio, broadcast television, cable news, and podcasts have tracked a historic informational arc that has often been biased and opinionated for the simple reason that humans are biased and opinionated creatures. Moreover, the rich and powerful who own and manage news sources have always sought to sway the public to their advantage, and the politicians who curry favor with the voting public will never stop seeking favorable coverage by spreading self-serving falsehoods and concealing their failures. 

Journalists survive in the business (and never forget the news and information industry is a very big business) by latching onto powerful protectors and patrons who advance their careers in exchange for mouthing the preferred platitudes and averting their eyes when necessary. When you cut through all the carefully coiffed hair and insincere sincerity, what we read and hear is partial truths wrapped in partisan blather, so we must always be careful to seek out multiple sources regarding any story and try to piece together a puzzle that might approximate the truth.

However, what makes this reality much harder to stomach today is that so many of the official lies can be so easily debunked—yet the liars just keep on lying. The primary causal factor behind the dull persistence of so many lies is simply that the financial rewards for the liars have never been so great. Whether one is looking at pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors, green energy suppliers, or any business angling for a big contract, lucrative subsidy, or fat tax break, hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars of cold, hard cash is going to buy a lot of “truth” in the service of profit. The plain fact that roughly 25% of the advertising on our nightly news broadcasts now comes from drug companies should tell us all we need to know about why so few questions were asked about the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines when lives could have been saved and health preserved—journalistic inquiry would have been bad for the bottom line.

Sad to say, there is also money to be made by seeding suspicion and paranoia. So-called “advocacy journalism”, a 1960’s Marxist relic that presupposes strategic lies in the service of a higher cause are acceptable, is today firmly entrenched in our news and information culture and allows providers to build loyal—and often quite fanatical—audiences who prefer to be untroubled by contrary ideas and opinions. It goes without saying that those who can see both sides of an issue are unlikely to be hurling Molotov cocktails, so the social cost of narrowing minds through the regular application of propaganda disguised as fact should now be obvious, and the purveyors of this trash should earn the well-deserved scorn of any American who cares about the welfare of our country.

A lie, no matter how often and how loudly it is repeated, is still a lie, and the Orwellian idea that we should dismiss the evidence before our own eyes is an existential danger to our Republic. As has been observed many times in the past, the most dangerous people around us are those who are absolutely, positively, without any doubt whatsoever convinced that they are right—and everyone else is wrong. Opening our minds to contrary opinions and different ideas might be painful for some and upsetting for many, but free and open debate—rather than the certitude of dull stupidity—is the only viable path forward for an America where Americans seem increasingly estranged from one another.

Can we find a way to talk about the many issues that divide us today? The possibility still exists, but we must abandon our Leftist love affair with censorship and cancelling so that free speech can open minds and hearts that have grown far too comfortable with remaining closed and cold. No country that prefers to perceive one another as enemies because it makes some feel smart, superior, or sensible can long survive the ill-informed beliefs of the loudest fools and the incessant prattling of those who are wholly uninterested in any opinion—other than their own.