How can so many people believe things that are demonstrably false? … The truth is obvious if you bother to look for it, right? This line of thinking leads to explanations of the hoodwinked masses that amount to little more than name calling: “Those people are foolish” or “Those people […] Read more »
Americans have lost faith in institutions. That’s not because of Trump or ‘fake news.’
The easiest sell of President Trump’s life is that a “corrupt” media produces “fake news.” After all, fewer than 2 in 10 Americans have “a lot” of trust in news organizations, the Pew Research Center has found, and we live in a “Matrix”-infused “conspiracy culture,” according to social scientists, where […] Read more »
‘Alternative facts’: A psychiatrist’s guide to twisted relationships to truth
Ronald W. Pies, Tufts University The phrase “alternative facts” has recently made the news in a political context, but psychiatrists like me are already intimately acquainted with the concept – indeed, we hear various forms of alternate reality expressed almost every day. All of us need to parse perceived from […] Read more »
Enough with the tweets, annoyed Americans tell Trump
Nearly two-thirds of Americans find President Donald Trump’s use of Twitter is reckless and distracting, according to a new nationwide McClatchy-Marist poll. The poll found 65 percent of registered voters nationwide disapproved of Trump’s tweeting, while 25 percent found it effective and informative. And despite Trump’s frequent blasts at the […] Read more »
Why You Shouldn’t Always Trust The Inside Scoop
So … this is a little awkward. Here we are, in the midst of a series of articles about the media’s shortcomings in covering the 2016 general election. And President Trump, the winner of that election, has to go out and call the media the “enemy of the American people.” […] Read more »
Trump’s Undermining the Media May Haunt Republicans
… Mr. Trump’s argument that the national press corps is illegitimate and dishonest has emerged as one of the most consistent themes of his presidency, alongside — and seemingly as important to him — his calls for a major tax code overhaul, an end to Obamacare, a border wall and […] Read more »