Wave after wave of digital innovation has introduced a new set of influences on the public’s news habits. Social media, messaging apps, texts and email provide a constant stream of news from people we’re close to as well as total strangers. News stories can now come piecemeal, as links or […] Read more »
Calming the storm: Fighting falsehoods, fig leaves and fairy tales
… Now that the Referendum has happened and the storm has somewhat abated the question that demands urgent attention is how any future referendum might be conducted on the basis of a more rigorous – dare we suggest even fact-based – public discussion? … If major broadcasters have a public […] Read more »
Who are all these Trump supporters?
… Intellectually and emotionally weakened by years of steadily degraded public discourse, we are now two separate ideological countries, LeftLand and RightLand, speaking different languages, the lines between us down. Not only do our two subcountries reason differently; they draw upon non-intersecting data sets and access entirely different mythological systems. […] Read more »
Fair Play in a Fact-Challenged Political Landscape
… What happens to the balance between truth and falsehood when an important portion of the national news media hands the political debate over to partisan operatives who, as a rule, skew the facts — or abandon them — in the service of their own political ends or business interests? […] Read more »
Are the voters really mad as hell?
… If there’s a new “silent majority” in the nation, they are not tea party activists or Millennials feeling the “Bern.” They are the tens of millions of Americans who are not angry, but remaining silent. In Iowa this year — despite all the buildup, the TV commercials and the […] Read more »
State of the First Amendment Survey
The State of the First Amendment survey, conducted by the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center, tests Americans’ knowledge of their core freedoms and samples their opinions on First Amendment issues of the day. The results of this year’s survey show most Americans favor free speech, even over speech that offends, […] Read more »