The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Encore Presentation - Disinformation -- What is It, Why Is it, and What Can We Do About It?

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

Today an encore presentation of an episode that originally aired on November 28th. Some say it's the scourge of our times, but if so what can be done about it?  Lee McIntyre is an American philosopher and author who's written extensively on the issues of truth and disinformation. He's studied the impact of both and shares his thoughts about how best to deal with them.  

Hello there, I'm Peter Mansbridge and welcome to this summer encore episode of The Bridge. This one is from the 28th of November of 2023. And hello there, welcome to Tuesday. Peter Mansbridge here with The Bridge. Special conversation coming up on the topic of disinformation. Well, I looked out my window yesterday. Stratford. Snow on the ground. Not a lot of it, but snow.

That signal, it's coming. It's finally coming. There's still leaves on the ground. There's still leaves in the trees. But snow is on its way. Today's going to be more snow. Now, that's just this little pocket of southwestern Ontario, and there is a certain degree of the wind and lake effect

that happens in the Stratford area. It's funny, you know, because we're right in a little pocket on one side to our east, Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo. They can have days where there's no snow. Stratford, lots of snow. And to our west, a little bit south, London, no snow, but bang. Stratford, snow. But there are going to be many days like that through the upcoming winter. We'll see what kind of winter it's going to be. You know, at first you kind of, well, snow, here we go again. But then again, you think, well, you know, we're less than a month from the holiday season and snow on the ground at Christmas time.

Nothing wrong with that. Looks kind of nice. And then we trudge our way into January and February. Okay, but I'm not going to get upset about it. I'm not going to get upset about it. I'm not going to get depressed about it. There are lots of things in our world that we can get on, be unhappy about. Winter isn't one of them.

It's one of the luxuries we have. We have a country that has changing seasons. Well, at least most of us do. Hello, Victoria. Okay. Well, if there's one thing you want to get unhappy about, it may be the extent to which disinformation has clogged our society, our information mechanisms.

It's right in there in a way that, you know, it's been around for a while, but the way we see disinformation and its impact on what we know and what we don't know, how that's changed in the last decade is something to be concerned about. So I wanted to talk to somebody. I've wanted to talk to, you know, we talk about it every once in a while with Chantal and Bruce and other guests. We talk about disinformation.

Janice Stein has talked a lot about disinformation when it comes to the Middle East and Ukraine. But I wanted to talk to somebody who could give us some deeper thoughts, if you will, about disinformation. So I tracked down Lee McIntyre. Now, you may or may not have heard of Lee McIntyre. He's a best-selling author. His current book is called On Disinformation,

but he's written others, How to Talk to a Science Denier, The Art of Good and Evil, The Philosophy of Science, The Scientific Attitude, Post-Truth. Are we living in a post-truth world? Anyway, there's lots of books and speeches and studies that Lee McIntyre has been involved with. He's a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. He's a recent lecturer in ethics at Harvard Extension School. He's got a PhD in philosophy from the University of Michigan. And the list goes on.

And I could speak for the next 15 minutes about all the different things that Lee McIntyre has done. Anyway, I reached out to him last week and I said, any chance we can have a conversation? He says, yeah, I'm really busy, but I'd love to do it. And so that's what we did. We had our chat on disinformation and I want to share it now with you. So, and you know, quite often I'll, you know, I'll break up an interview halfway through as we switch topics and take our break in the middle of the interview. Not going to one this one because it's all basically one topic.

So we'll go for the full route on that. We'll have our break at the end of it and a couple of other issues to quickly deal with after that. But right now, let's get to this conversation with Lee McIntyre. I think you'll find it interesting. Here we go. So why don't we start with trying to understand what we don't understand about disinformation. What's the biggest misconception about disinformation?

I think the most important thing that people can understand about disinformation is that it's different from misinformation. Misinformation is a mistake. It's when you believe something to be true and it happens not to be true. But disinformation is a lie. Disinformation is when somebody invented a falsehood and they pass it to you because they want you to believe in it. In a way, the person who believes it is victimized. So disinformation is a different category, I think, because it's intentional. It means that somebody is not just wrong, but they were duped. And they're usually duped by somebody with nefarious intent who wants them to believe that falsehood,

usually because it serves their interest and makes a victim of the person who believes it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but has the balance between misinformation and disinformation tipped towards more disinformation than misinformation over these last, I don't know, five, 10 years? Interesting. I think that there's more disinformation now than there was because I think that people figured out that you could do it i mean it used to be a kind of a warfare tactic you saw this was something that governments did to other governments or governments did to their own citizens in some cases citizens of other countries i mean but but it was a warfare thing um now it's a way of life. And I mean, it's because the internet has made it so easy. Some people, I mean, look, I'm a philosopher, so I've got to draw the fine distinction here,

right? Because sometimes there's misinformation that just grows up as a kind of an organic falsehood that nobody invented, nobody, you know, nobody created it, nobody's benefiting from it. It's just a, it's just a false thing. You know, and that's pretty rare, right? That's pretty rare for, I'm trying to think of an example here of something that's, you know, just a, just a, just a mistake or an accident. But you could also technically use the term misinformation when somebody hears a lie, they hear disinformation, and then they pass it on because they believe it. Then I suppose that's technically speaking also misinformation.

But that's really damaging, isn't it? Because then they're just being duped and they're doing somebody else's work. So I don't like to use the word misinformation for that. I think if something starts with a lie, then you should call it disinformation. But I don't mean any disrespect there to people who are duped and maybe have a big platform and passing it on. You know, when Nicki Minaj was passing on all the falsehood about the COVID vaccines, I don't think she was doing that on purpose in the sense that she was making any money or she'd made it up. She was duped and she had a big platform, so she was passing it on.

She was passing it on as misinformation. But if it starts with a lie lie if the origin is a lie then i'm going to call it disinformation i just thought of an example of misinformation the idea that the earth is flat whoever made a buck on that whoever gets any power or what suits their ideology i mean it's just this weird thing that some people believe that comes out of nowhere, and then maybe they pass it back and forth to one another. But it's not like there's some strategic denial plot behind it,

you know, to get people to believe that the earth is flat. I don't think, at least I've studied these folks, and I've never discovered one, right? I mean, they're usually conspiracy theorists and they think there's a plot to cover up the fact that the earth is flat i don't i don't think there's how do they come to that i don't know the the way disinformation is is passed around now and as you've you've fingered the main culprit, which is the Internet, social media, is it, you know, it's more than a game, those who are behind disinformation. There's a reason they're pushing disinformation.

That's right. And how do we get at that? How do we get at what the reason is? It's such an important question because once you figure out what they want, then it helps you to expose the lie and it helps you to keep it from being amplified on the internet into these other people who are getting duped, right? so once you realize that the cigarette companies spent 40 years saying the conclusive link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer has never been scientifically proven why did they do that because they wanted to continue to sell cigarettes now so what did they get out of that? It's obvious, they got money. Now,

they don't understand, or let me put it this way, they did understand how science worked, and so they exploited that word proof, because science can't prove something does or doesn't happen. I mean, that's not how empirical reasoning works. But it's overwhelmingly probably true that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. But by saying it hasn't been conclusively proven, then they were technically speaking saying, oh, well, we're saying the truth, but it's still disinformation because they are using it in a cynical way to get what they want. I'll give you a better example. We've all heard the ridiculous claim that the COVID vaccines have tracking microchips in them. And thousands of people probably died because they didn't take their vaccine because they were afraid of that.

What people don't know is that that lie was invented by Russian intelligence. That was a product of the SVR, which is a branch of what used to be the KGB. And they invented that in April, 2020 published it in an English language propaganda arm of the SVR called the Oriental review in which they said any future tracking any, any future, my, um, that COVID vaccines developed in the West will have tracking microchips in them. Courtesy of Bill Gates who holds patent 666 on the technology. The bottom of the story, it said share on Facebook, share on Twitter, which apparently millions of people did. Because in May 2020, 28% of the American population believed it. Now, why did the Russians do that?

It destabilized American society society which is always good for them it undermined confidence in the pfizer and moderna vaccines before they were even invented which meant that maybe people were going to take the sputnik vaccine which russia had invented and they wanted to dominate the african and as markets with that. Think of the money they could make. But hell, it was also called the Sputnik. I mean, there's some national pride there, right? There's some power, there's some ideology. So why did they invent that lie?

Because it served their interest. And the horrific part is that they knew that people would die, but they did it anyway. Now, if you can expose something like that in advance, that's the best way to fight back. Exposing it after the fact, that's second best, right? Because you can get people to, you know, people who are down the rabbit hole, you can try to talk them back up. But best to expose the plot before it even gets to their ears. That's called pre-bunking. And they're using it now.

Biden is using it um when russia has got you know some disinformation plan cam uh campaign plan for ukraine a couple of times now biden has exposed it in advance and that defangs the snake so it's a great way to fight back they you know it seemed at at times, when we're talking COVID, it seems at times that the way they tried to fight back was to ridicule the theories that were coming out. Yeah. And ridicule doesn't seem to work as well as, you know, taking them on, I don't know, in a much more substantial way than just trying to make fun of them. Yes, because if you make fun of them, sometimes it sounds like you're making fun of the people who believe it. And humiliation is not a good way to convince somebody to change their beliefs. I

mean, if you insult somebody or you humiliate them or you shame them, they're never going to change their mind. And people are in different places on the spectrum of denial. I mean, some of them can be convinced, and you don't want to lose them. No, I think the best way to fight back is to expose the plot. I mean, make it clear what's at stake. Imagine when that article came out in the Oriental Review, if that could have been preempted or immediately followed up by a debunking. You know, immediately to say, because people tended to say, oh, that's such a stupid idea. Who would believe that? 28% of the American population believed it.

So, you know, that old line response that you saw John Kerry give back when he was running for president and they were saying all these ridiculous things about him and he said, I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. Boy, is that the wrong way. You've got to get there as fast as you can. Ahead of time, if you know about what they're going to say, but immediately after is the second best choice. That's how to fight back.

When it's a polluted information stream and everybody's passing around rumors and lies and all sorts of falsehood on the Internet, you've got to try to nip it in the bud. That's why I'm so disappointed with the social media companies for not doing more content moderation now, because it just makes it so easy. It's just it's that kind of amplification is a disinformer's dream. Let me let me throw one of your quotes back at you, Ben,

and get you to explain a little bit. And this is from On Disinformation, your latest book. Welcome to the world of reality denial, where truth is subordinate to ideology, feelings have more weight than evidence, and democracy hangs in the balance. Take us behind that quote, because that's pretty scary stuff. I think that disinformation... Look, let me back up. Why do people deny facts? Some people deny facts because they get something out

of it. But most people who deny facts don't get anything out of it. Most of the people who deny that the, who say that the 2020 election was stolen, they don't get anything out of that. Most of the people who said that the COVID vaccines were too dangerous to take, they didn't get anything out of it. Some of them died. The people who are making the claim that climate change isn't real, they're dooming themselves and their great-grandchildren to a terrible outcome. So why do they do it? They do it because they're duped. They do it because they're duped they do it because they're disinformed um and so again i think that it's important to it's important to it's important to make clear to people why this is happening um people don't wake up one day wondering whether the California wildfires are started by a Jewish space laser.

It's just not the kind of thing that just occurs to you when you wake up or you're taking a shower, you're shaving. You hear that from somebody. And then you think, most of us think that's ridiculous. But some people think, I'm going to look into that. They get on the internet and then, oh, there are other people who believe this. Maybe there's something to it. Then they go to YouTube, they get 20 videos in a row and it's too late. Now, how did that happen?

It happened because it served somebody's interest to have an army of people think that the California wildfires were started by a jewish space laser who who who and what was the interest if you can answer that question who's behind it and what do they get out of it then you've got a chance then you've got a chance to fight back you know um you know as well as i do that there are people listening to this right now who are saying, I'm not duped, he's duped. Yeah, I just got that email today. I did, I get that email every day.

And what do you do with it? Is there a response to that, or is it just, you know, it's too late? Yeah, look, I understand where it comes from. I mean, if the person is respectful, then I give them a respectful answer back. If it's hatred, I have a file called hate mail, and I just put it in there, right? But I mean, Mark Twain said it's easier to fool somebody than to convince them that they've been fooled. It's very hard once somebody has been fooled because it makes them feel like an idiot. And so when I write a respect, when they've written to me respectfully and I write a respectful response back, I will, I try to have empathy because they're a victim.

And sometimes they can be hard to deal with. But I will say, I said to a woman the other day, you know, she was she was telling me, you know, there was some conspiracy theory about vaccines. And I said, I'm so sorry, but you were, you were duped on this. And here's an article that you might read. And it was from USA Today. If it had been from the New York Times or the Washington Post, she might've said, ah, it's a liberal rag. But it was from USA Today. So I kind of tailored the source to push back. And I also recognize that you can't convince somebody against their will, and you can't shove facts down their throat and think it's going to work. You can just treat them with dignity and respect, and try to get them to trust you and maybe they'll change their own mind so you know i i try to treat everybody with dignity and respect um i went to a flat earth convention

and i didn't know what i was going to find but what I found were a lot of people who genuinely believed that the earth was flat. And what I channeled was not my inner physicist, because I don't have any inner physicist. I couldn't, I mean, they had read what I had read. They just didn't believe it. I channeled my inner philosopher. And I said, I'm really curious why you believe that. What's your, you know, and I can you convince me that you're right? And they were more than happy to have that conversation because I listened to them. And then usually they turn to me and say, what do you think? Or, you know, they were upset because they hadn't convinced me.

My best question was, I would say things like, look, you don't believe this on faith, do you? And they'd say, no, evidence, evidence. We've got evidence. Come to some of the seminars. You'll see the evidence. I'd say, okay. So you're kind of scientific

then right you're you do experiments of your own and you're you know your your belief in flat earth is based on your sensory evidence they said that's right absolutely evidence so then i would say okay so tell me this what evidence if I had it right now to present to you, would change your mind? And none of them could answer that question. Now, I said that not to get in their face, but to make them a slight bit uncomfortable, because the ones who got it understood that that was the whole show. Because a scientist can answer that question. If you ask, there was a famous scientist one time that they asked him,

I think it was Dobzhansky, what could convince you that evolution by natural selection was not true? And he said rabbit fossils in the pre-Cambrian era. That's pretty damn specific, right? But a denier does not do that. And they don't do that because they don't believe what they believe based on facts and evidence, actually. They believe it because they trusted don't believe what they believe based on facts and evidence actually they believe it because they trusted the wrong people and disinformation doesn't just get you

to believe a falsehood it gets you to distrust the truth tellers and so they were not even listening to the scientists anymore and that's why i I went, because I'm not a scientist, but I wanted to show up in person and say, I can engage in respectful dialogue with you and try to build some trust. Let me wrap this up by going to the heart of this issue of the lie, that disinformation is a lie. We all know about the art of the lie and the art of the lie in politics,

and we see it more now than ever. And not just with one person, you know who I'm talking about, but we see it with a number of politicians in a number of countries. And what I want to try and get at is how the media fits in, the legacy media, as opposed to the social media. How does the media, television networks, newspapers, how do they deal with this? Because we've seen well, you know, we mentioned Trump

without mentioning his name, but I mean, we saw the situation a couple of months ago where he did an interview on CNN, where just like in most of his interviews, it's kind of one lie after another. You can challenge, but at a certain point, you kind of lose that. Yeah. You lose that contest. It's a disinformation tactic. Yeah.

It's called the fire hose of falsehood. He learned it from Vladimir Putin. Look, I'm sorry I interrupted you there. No, no, no. I mean, you know what I'm getting at. What do you do? Like, what do you do in a situation like that, where you're in an interview with somebody who is running for office,

a major office, and they're lying to you, and they're lying to the public. And, you know, you try to challenge them. As you say, the fire hose, it just keeps coming. Well, the media needs to do a better job. The old model used to be that they would catch the politician in a lie, and then the politician usually had some shame. There was some accountability. There was some shame, right? Yeah, no shame anymore do you

remember john edwards sure i mean you you catch them you catch them red-handed in a lie and they resign they drop out of the campaign i mean used to be right that's not what happens now trump has made it safe for people to double down on the lie. And the media sometimes, and again, I'm, and I'm too, I'm talking about the mainstream media kind of caught flat footed because their model has always been, well, wait a minute. I just beat you. Why don't you admit you're done? And he won't admit that, that he lost because he's doubling down on the lie. So now what to do? The journalists that I think know what they're doing in that situation are the ones who are used to interviewing dictators. You see Christiane Amanpour go interview Gaddafi, interview Saddam Hussein.

You know, you see when they expect to be lied to. And that's how to handle Trump. That's how to handle the guy who doubles down. Jonathan Swan did a great job with him not so long ago. Now, the context matters. Jonathan Swan had him. It wasn't a live interview. It was taped so he could stop and fact check, you know, etc. He didn't have an audience of cheering supporters there. Poor Caitlin Collins. She got waylaid. I mean, that was the worst possible way to do that because the audience was filled with Trump supporters and it was in real time.

And when you interview a liar, if you just let them talk, you're doing great damage, right? Because you're just amplifying the lie. Even if they're pushing back, what the supporters are hearing is their fearless leader saying what they want to hear. So what do you do? Do you just not do the interview? If you can't, you don't do the interview. Yes, you de-platform a liar if that's possible. But if it's somebody who's running for office, if it's somebody who just, you know, by the fact that it's this person lying, they're making news by the lie. And I put Trump into both those categories. You can't just ignore him. I think they need more journalists who understand how to interview a hostile subject,

who do the Christiane Amanpour type interview. And I mean, there are others in the past, you know, who have done this. I remember Barbara Walters doing this and Diane Sawyer. I mean, there are other people who have done this. The thing that doesn't work is the lazy interview, where you put the microphone in front of them, you let them talk, you give one quick pushback, and then you move on to the next question. Worse yet is the split screen, where you take a, I mean, they used to do this for opinion matters only, now they do it for factual matters. You have, you know, the award-winning scientist on one side of the screen,

and you have the guy with a website on the other side of the screen, and they're going to, you know, they're going to mix it up about whether the COVID vaccines are safe. And what the audience sees is two equal size boxes on the screen, both of which sounds somewhat credible. That's the terrible way to do it, right? That's not, so they shouldn't do those kinds of interviews. They shouldn't platform somebody in that, around, you know, that sort of an issue. That's the worst way to cover a factual issue. It's called false equivalence, right? It's just not, it doesn't work. Or let me put it this way. It disinforms the audience to do it that way. I think the reason journalists do that is because they're terrified of being accused of political bias.

They don't want somebody to say, oh, well, you're just a shill. You're just saying that because you're Democrat. You know, I mean, wasn't this the criticism they gave of CNN, right? Which all of a sudden now CNN is going to rebrand themselves as, you know, no, they're not, you know, they're going to be right down the middle. They're not going to be partisan. Well, Stuart Stevens in his recent book, I can't remember what it's called, but I wish I had said this, but I'm going to attribute it to Stuart Stevens who said it. He said, how do you tell both sides of a lie? How do you have the liar on your program lying? And then you have, I mean, you can't say any better than he did.

How do you tell both sides of a lie? You just, you can't say any better than he did. How do you tell both sides of a lie? You just, you can't. So don't look, don't book liars on your program. And if you have to book a liar on your program, be prepared to interview them like you would Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi. You know they're going to lie. And you're not going to let them get away with just um pretending it's all true and i like that i like that advice don't book a liar um that was soledad o'brien was the one who said that used to be on cnn that's why she's not there anymore but she's she's awesome she was a

tough tough cookie very tough the only trouble with that advice is the pool for those you can talk to is getting smaller and smaller all the time. Well, I mean, look, yeah, that's true. I mean, there is a way if they're interviewing, you know, some senator on a topic other than the 2020 election. They, yeah, I mean, there are ways to do it. You don't, I mean, if, if you couldn't book any politician who is a liar that meet the press wouldn't exist, right? I mean, they all a certain level, but, but you have to, um, it's the strategic lie. It's not the self-serving lie. It's, it's the strategic one that I worry about the most. It's, you know, John Edwards gets caught. He's done a bad thing.

He gets, he's out of politics. Trump lies. He might bring down American democracy. You shouldn't let him double down on that. You know, that's, they, they, they, they, the mainstream media needs to do a better job on that. I like your split-screen example, too, because, you know, you go back to the smoking debate. There used to be a time where they were treated equally, both sides of that argument, right?

And then eventually the media said, you know what? We're getting had here. These guys who are, you know, usually the tobacco companies, they're wrong, and we know they're wrong. And it's proven wrong. We've seen the same kind of thing with climate change, right? Same strategy. Same strategy. Exact same blueprint.

And we see the same thing with the election was rigged or what have you. Exactly. It's the same thing. Here's my last question. What is your advice to the consumer of information, the consumer of news, no matter where they're getting it? What's your advice to them? We assume for a moment they're somewhere in the middle here,

and they're looking for information that they can trust. What's your advice to them? One of the most insidious things about disinformation is that it just doesn't, it doesn't just get you to believe something false. It polarizes you. It polarizes you whether you believe the lie or not. If you believe the lie, then maybe you begin to distrust the people who are telling the truth. And maybe that poisons the well for anything else they've got to say too.

But it also polarizes the people who don't believe the lie because sometimes it can make them feel helpless. It can make them feel cynical. It can make them feel like there's nothing i can do and i've had friends say i just can't even read the news anymore because you don't know who's lying and who's not you can't fact check everything and who fact checks the fact checkers and it's just too exhausting and you've got to realize that that's exactly where the authoritarian wants you to be. And I'm going to read you a quick, you read a passage from the book, I'm going to read you one that comes up even earlier in the book, a quotation from Hannah Arendt on page three. She says, the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.

The authoritarian doesn't need to get you to believe the lie. They need you to give up on the idea that you can know the truth. And because once you've done that, then they've really got you, right? And so I think that the best way to fight back against disinformation has got to be to wake up to the fact that you're not helpless. Don't be cynical. You cannot fact check everything for yourself that's true most of what we believe we haven't fact checked for ourself we believe it because it comes from a trusted source so i would say that if you go individually with each fact trying to fact check

it plain whack-a-mole it's just going to make you crazy. Instead, spend some time finding a reliable media source that you trust, and then watch that. I listen to NPR. I watch PBS. I'll tell you the show that I enjoy more than any other is the BBC. Anytime I can get BBC radio, I love it because they're funny. Their perspective on American politics is sharp and important and not quite so apocalyptic on one side or the other as American coverage is. So, I mean, I've got a set of media sources that I enjoy and

trust. I'd say that's the best advice. I have to say one of them that I trust is Nicole Wallace on MSNBC. Some people have said, oh, MSNBC, they're just as bad as Fox. They're not. Fox are proven liars, as we know from the Dominion lawsuit. MSNBC, not. But there's some confirmation bias sometimes. Sometimes the narrative is from a point of view. There's some opinion programming, not all hard news. But Nicole Wallace, the thing that I enjoy about her coverage, she's a former Republican operative in the Bush White House, by the way,

is that she never gets it wrong in distinguishing between myths and disinformation. She doesn't just say, oh, well, that's a lie. What do we do next? she drills down she if there's a lie there has to be a liar what do they get out of it what do they want who are they radicalizing where it's the next step so i watch her show every day um you're not so even though it's even though it's msnbc and people will say oh that's just a democratic leaning network. I find her to be very credible. Yeah, I'm a fan of hers. And one of the reasons I'm a fan of hers, I mean, there's no doubt about where she stands on Trump. I mean, she doesn't hide her feelings about Trump at any time.

But one of the things I've always admired about her, and this included when she used to stand behind the microphone for George W. Bush in the Bush White House, which was she has clearly researched what she's talking about. She doesn't sort of come into the studio at 5 to 4 in the afternoon and wing it for two hours. She's worked hard at it, and we're going to miss her for these next few months. So she brings up a new child in her 50s. Good for her. Yeah. Yeah. I heard that. I'm going to miss too. And, you know, I don't remember so much of what you remember when she was

behind the microphone, but the, you you know it brings up i mean we all the term spin doctoring is always that kind of cute word for what they do and she and that is what she did and that's what she did yeah but spin spin i wrote an earlier book called respecting truth in which i argue there are different ways of respecting and disrespecting truth spin doctoring is not exactly respect for truth but it's not as bad as lying for the following reason, because spin doctoring is putting the best face on the facts. And there's some editing, and it's not, you know, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

But it's not as bad as what we saw during the spokespeople that Trump had. I mean, so... Right out of the gate. Right out of the gate, day one. I mean, I was in Washington. I was there for the inauguration. And, you know, day one was that whole crazy situation about the size of the crowd.

But the fact is, that was a signal to us. These guys are going to lie. They're going to lie about the most obvious things and just keep saying it. And know that you know that they're lying, but they're going to do it anyway. Masha Gessen captured that perfectly. They said, that's an assertion of power.

It's not meant to convince you. It's meant to show you who's boss. I thought that my friend Jason Stanley, in his book, How Propaganda Works, makes that very same assertion. And I think that's a great insight into propaganda, disinformation, you know, however you want to call it. It's if they can get you to believe the lie, great. If all they can do is bully you to show you who's boss and maybe get you to shut up and not fight back and be cynical, that works too. Lee McIntyre, it's been a great conversation. I really enjoyed talking to you, and I'm sure we could go on for hours yet on this topic.

And hopefully we'll talk again at some point because this isn't going to be suddenly solved in the next 24 hours. We're going to have this hanging around us for a while. Next year should be quite something in your country as they head to the presidential elections. Oh, my goodness, is the way to look at it. All right. Well, thank you so much for doing this.

Really appreciate it. And I hope we do get a chance to talk again at some point. Peter, thank you so much for having me on your show. I really enjoyed our conversation. Well, there you go. Lee McIntyre, author of On Disinformation and many other books. You can find them at your local bookstore. You can order them

online. He's a thinker, right? He's a thinker. He's a philosopher, as he says. And he has the background and the knowledge and the studying to have these conversations and engage in them with people across his country. And he spends a lot of time going to universities and television appearances, you name it. And now he's finally made it. He has made it to the pinnacle. He's made it on the bridge. It was great to have him. And as I said, I hope we can have another conversation at some other point on this same topic. Because I know it's of interest to you. You write to me about it.

You have strong feelings about disinformation. And good for you that you do. I hope you found this interesting. Okay, we're almost out of time for today. But we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, just one final thought. That's right after this. And welcome back.

You've been listening to The Bridge on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. This kind of relates in a way. It's an American fact. It's kind of an in-bit of sorts. The headline in pointer.com, excuse me, pointer dot org, is the United States lost more than two local newspapers each week this year. Two a week. Here's the main body of the story, part of it anyway. The rate of local newspaper closures has accelerated to 2.5 a week in 2023, according to a new report from the Mettle School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

More than 130 papers have closed or merged this year, and the country is on track to lose a third of its papers since 2005. By the end of next year, the report found, over half of counties in the United States have just one or no local news outlets. Now, we know some of the reason for this is advertising dollars. They've just evaporated. You know, you look in your mailbox, you want to see where the advertising goes. It's not in papers.

It's in flyers. Or it's online. Or on some rare occasions it's on TV, but not a lot of it. This has had the impact on local newspapers across the United States, but also across Canada. Those numbers are going to be available soon, and we'll mention those as well. But every time you turn around, some form of local news seems to be shutting down. And the impact is, well, it's horrible.

It's horrible on the knowledge of those in smaller communities about what's going on in their communities, and it hurts democracy. When you're not aware of what's going on, it's hard to make your voice known. As one of the researchers in this latest study said, it really is still a country of journalism haves and have-nots in a lot of ways. In a lot when some people are upset at journalists, and they release the bots on social media to go after the mainstream media, the legacy media, call

it whatever you want, and we see that all the time now, to the point where it's kind of a joke, really, internally. Now, there's lots of criticism that is well-pointed and open for real discussion. But some of the stuff that's personal and, you know, there are no examples given. You know, they attack a journalist for a story they wrote. They don't point out a single thing in the story that the journalist got wrong. They just attack them for the sake of attacking them. That happens a lot now. A lot now.

Or you can tell, especially on social media, that it's a bot. It's just some created listener or viewer. Anyway, the point was, as Lee McIntyre says, you need an active journalistic community that is trusted by the larger community to take on disinformation. If you don't have the trust or you don't have the community itself, the journalistic community, you're in a bad way. And in many parts of the U.S. and in Canada, that's the situation today. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Peter Mansbridge.