— by Lin McNulty —
The recent Orcas Currents presentation by Hedrick Smith and Sarah Stillman, “The Future of Journalism in a Post-Truth Environment,” is now available on video for those who could not attend the event on Friday, July 28.
The promulgation of alternative facts, fake news, and blatant untruths via the Internet and social media, fanned by a new president with over 32 million Twitter followers, threatens to rend the shared fabric of authoritative, reliable information on which citizens and public officials depend to make good policy decisions. A seemingly unbridgeable partisan chasm has opened between Democrats and Republicans on many important issues. The nature of truth itself has been called into question.
As The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni recently asked, “What happens to a democracy whose citizens not only lose common ground but also take a match to the idea of a common reality?”
Along with Orcas Currents, cosponsors Janet Alderton, Joe Cohen and Martha Farish, and Frank Greer and Stephanie Solien made discussion of this timely issue possible.
Watch the video, above, and share your comments on this topic.
