Column: Trump’s lies are dragging down democracy, journalism and the climate
A single social media post illuminates the precarious state of the American democratic experiment.
When President Trump said last week that the military had “just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond,” he was lying. As The Times’ Clara Harter and Ian James reported, there was no military invasion. The federal government simply restarted some Northern California pumps that had been down for maintenance for three days.
Related Knowledge Center: Democracy and politics
News organizations are scrambling to find a coverage approach that adequately informs the American public about the country’s slide from democracy to authoritarian rule.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors