“Lies often seem more plausible and appealing than the truth, because the liar knows what his audience wants to hear.”
This statement could have been written as a comment last year, or even last week, on the state of current political reporting. This is an excerpt from Lies in Politics by Hannah Arendt, published in The New York Review of Books on November 21, 1971. Her reflections were inspired by the Pentagon Papers which revealed the discrepancy in US government narratives about the Vietnam War compared to the actual policies.
Review of Age of Doubt, Building Trust in an Age of Misinformation (Monash University Publishing), edited by Tracey K. Kirkland and Gavin Fang
The feeling that we cannot trust the public institutions or the information they provide us seems to be a recent phenomenon. Age of Doubt : Building Trust in an Era of Misinformation is a collection of essays edited and written by ABC journalists Tracey Kirkland & Gavin Fang. It addresses the misinformation crises as “one of the most important issues of our times”.
Arendt responded to a specific moment of public distrust in her writing. It is clear that we face another crisis. What is new about this crisis, if it is not a new problem? What makes the problem a priority?
The 25 short essays in this book provide a variety of diagnoses. The book is dominated by journalists and editors, but also includes contributions from the heads of important public institutions. The book’s title is printed so that the first and second words are overlaid on the front cover.
It is problematic to imply that doubt is the opposite of trust. Surely, mistrust or suspicion is the opposite of both. Is it necessarily bad if doubt replaces trust? A climate rife with disinformation and propaganda tends to create a strong sense of certainty about false beliefs. It encourages an excessive level of trust in influential public figures and highly manipulative influencers. The anthology does not aim to tackle this issue.
Cut flowers
Many contributors view the breakdown of trust as an existential crisis, as a result of a long history of divided perceptions. Fang returns to Plato’s cave where the residents are forbidden from looking at the outside world, and can only view its shadows projected on an interior wall. Each person sees the shadows differently.
It is obvious that this ancient metaphor has relevance in a world increasingly dominated with screens. Fang quotes Nick Enfield from the University of California, Berkeley’s Department of Linguistics. He calls for “a literacy about our own limits”. Simon Longstaff of the Ethics Centre is also concerned about the loss of a common vision. He suggests that the situation we find ourselves in today is similar to the one faced by French philosopher Rene Descartes at the end of the 17th century. The loss of a standard of judgement makes it impossible to trust as the certainty of the past crumbles.
Ben Decker is a former New York Times journalist and a specialist on information warfare. He compares this problem to coastal erosion. He says, “It’s a fact that we saw this coming.” Marshall McLuhan warned us of it in the 1970s. Disinformation was around long before the Internet. Decker, like Fang, sees disinformation as a problem of existence. Instead of investing in more programs to combat disinformation, we must concentrate on “increasing empathy at scale”.
Anglican archbishop Michael Stead describes the lack of empathy as a natural consequence of losing faith. An unChristian society continues to function on Christian foundations. This leaves us, “like cut flower”, without the common ground that we need for survival.
Many contributors see the COVID epidemic as a turning-point. Conspiracy theories spread like a secondary virus that is more durable. Kaz Ros, an expert in conspiracy theories and extremism, explains that they are born in the gap between a sudden event and our ability to explain it. Once false reports are in place, it’s hard to find a genuine explanation.
The former Victorian Police Commissioner Graham Ashton was forced to face situations where the public judged police actions without understanding the circumstances. The tensions were heightened by instantaneous reactions on the internet. His experience confirmed his belief that the police should be a part of a community and not separate from it.
It’s easy to say, and another vote for empathy is cast. The word “empathy”, however, is used to give too much weight to the search for solutions. What does “empathy” mean in this context?
Only YolNGu elder Yalmay Yonupingu can give a convincing response to this question. Yunupingu comes from a community where truth-telling is a practice that has been passed down through the generations. The Gurrutu kinship system is the basis of trust.
Here, there are no cut flowers from Archbishop Stead. In place of the well-intentioned discussion of empathy, rules, responsibilities, and protocols are in place. These are taught to children through stories. The language is a heritage that should be respected and nurtured. It serves as a reminder that speaking falsely begins the betrayal.
What is the role of agency?
A lie told to a group of people who can see your face has a different moral impact than spreading falsehoods across a global media landscape. Kirkland’s statement that “something is different in this age, sometimes dangerously”, leads us to the question of agency and whether the problem is inherent in the new media.
Journalists are particularly inclined to target social media platforms for obvious reasons. According to Nic Newman and Amy Ross Arguedas of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, journalists are frequently the target of vindictive bloggers.
Social media is polarising. The plummeting trust in the professional news media is often correlated with an increase in frustration on TikTok and X. This is just a part of the picture, and it requires a more focused approach than what this collection of disparate writings can provide. The social media is as diverse as any other public communication. Public commentary can be overlooked as a way to respond to real issues and criticize the role high-profile journalists and presenters have in the political arena.
The difference between a political spat on Sky and what we expect to see from ABC is just as big as the one between an abusive spray and a serious discourse on Threads. It would be better for journalists to pay attention to the criticism that is made on public platforms rather than tossing it into the deplorables basket.
No one in the news media is proposing this type of rapprochement to bridge the gap of mistrust. This is despite the fact that there are many distinguished journalists who use social media to raise ethical awareness about issues of vital importance. Van Badham and Debbie Spillane from Australia, George Monbiot of The Guardian, Anne Applebaum from The Atlantic and Andrew Weissman, MSNBC’s legal analyst, are all among the people who successfully do this.
Radical impartiality
The ABC’s Patricia Karvelas tackles the “radical impartiality” issue that plagues all political journalists in the broadcaster. She cites well-documented data about the decline in satisfaction with government and democracy as well as the increase of influence campaigns funded and orchestrated by “bad actors” sowing discord.
In this volatile climate, high-profile figures such as her can only gauge their performance through being attacked equally by the left and right. Karvelas says that the solution lies in increasing democratic literacy and giving people tools to become better judges.
This is a condescending attitude, and it goes with the satisfaction that the public has a voice when its text messages are read or when they can ask a question to a panel of celebrities. This only increases the gap and frustration. Maybe people comment on social media to express a viewpoint that the broadcasters and televisions are missing?
Even the most prestigious news professionals can be very obtuse about their core business. The New Yorker’s Fergus McIntosh writes: “Every tribe has their myths. Journalists are no different.” He says that fact-checking has become “a pursuit bordering upon mania”. As a solution to a disinformation storm, this practice just doesn’t cut it.
The New Yorker has 30 fact-checkers. Are the managers of the staff who oversee their budgets unaware that the deception and manipulation is not in the “facts”, but rather in the connections, in the way the facts are woven together into a narrative with heavy implication, or in the colourful nonsequiturs?
These are the types of things that social media communities pick up on, as participants combine their understanding of a variety of sources and then share it with others.
Ulrik Haagerup is the CEO of Constructive Institut and Danish News Director. He offers the most insightful and agile perspective on this matter. He focuses on the importance of self-awareness. He describes workshops held for editors at News Corp. The agenda of the workshop was to identify how to see and do things differently.
This exercise starts with the resolve to “rethink constantly the business of storytelling”. Haagerup, at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DBC), led experiments that asked questions of different types and challenged some preconceived notions about news communication. One strategy was to accompany politicians to regions where they were required to speak to “real people”.
By choosing “trust” instead of “truth” to be the central theme, the editors avoided the risk of inviting polemical or didactic views. Arendt warns that “truth has a coercive element.” Accepting the Plato’s Cave dilemma may be a part of trust. No one claims the truth with more passion than the propagandists who use lies to appeal to reason.
Jane Goodall has not disclosed any relevant affiliations other than her academic appointment. She does not work, consult, own or receive funding from companies or organisations that would benefit from the article.
