Last week saw monumental change in media, politics and national life, most notably: Donald Trump, who dominated popular culture the last four years, is out of the White House and finally off every social media platform that matters.
It was also a week of hope, promise and major resets. In his inaugural address, President Joe Biden had said, “There is truth and there are lies … We must unite to defeat the lies.”
Trump, of course, was the liar in chief who used the most powerful platform in the nation to poison our information ecosystem with propaganda, disinformation, misinformation and conspiracy theories. We saw how convincing his biggest lie – that he won the election – was to some of his followers who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 on his behalf leaving five dead.
The battle over accurate information, the lifeblood of democracy, is anything but over. The damage that Trump has done to facts, science, information and honest journalism is going to take years if not generations to restore.
A coherent strategy involving journalists, teachers, political leaders and citizens is needed. It could be a tough task given that I am no longer sure most citizens even care whether they live in a media environment built on facts or a world of ideology and magical thinking built on alternative facts.