The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Encore: Truth and Disinformation.

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

An encore of Lee McIntyre philosopher & author who's written extensively on the issues of truth & disinformation.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode, The Bridge. It's Wednesday, so that means an encore edition today. And we've got a great one from last November. But before we get to it, don't forget. This is the question of the week. Do you think that Mark Carney has retreated on some of the things that made many Canadians decide to vote for the liberals in the last election?

It may be environmental policy, it may be something else. But do you think he's retreated or no? Do you think he's still fixated on what he said he was going to do? That's the question of the week. Send your answers to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Have them in before 6 p.m. Eastern Time this evening. Keep it short, 75 words or fewer. Remember your name.

and the location you're writing from. Those are the words you have to follow. Those are the rules you have to follow. If you want to get your question of the week read on the air tomorrow. All right. Our Encore edition goes back to last November, November of 24. And the issue was disinformation. And the guest is Lee McIntyre, the American philosopher.

hope you enjoy it and hello there welcome to today Peter Mansbridge here with the bridge special conversation coming up on the topic of disinformation 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 say, 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, you know, like 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 Ph.D. 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, 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, you know, let's get to this conversation with, 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. This information 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 dup. and they're usually they're duped by somebody with nefarious intent who you know wants them to believe that falsehood usually because it serves their interest and makes the 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 it was a warfare thing. 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 false thing. And that's pretty rare, right?

That's pretty rare for some. I'm trying to think of an example here of something that's, you know, 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 Nikki 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, 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 think there's, how do they come to that? I don't know. The way disinformation is passed around now, and as you've, you know, 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 future COVID vaccines developed in the West, will have tracking microchips in them courtesy of Bill Gates who holds patents 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, 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 Asian 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. I mean, the American government is using it when Russia has got, you know, some disinformation plan 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. You know, it seemed 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 way, 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 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 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. you when it's a polluted information stream and everybody's passing around rumors and lies and you know all sorts of falsehood on 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 that kind of amplification is a disinformer's

dream. Let me throw one of your quotes back at you, get you to explain it 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 2020 election was stolen, they don't get anything out of that.

Most of the people who said that the COVID, COVID vaccines were too dangerous to take, they didn't get anything out of it. Some of them died. The people who were 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 disinformed.

And so again, I think that it's important to it's important to make clear to people why this is happening people don't wake up one day wondering whether the California wildfires are started by a Jewish space laser that's just not the kind of thing that just occurs to you when you know

you wake up or you're taking a shower you're shaving that 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 the 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, 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 when 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 she was telling me

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 of the Washington Post she might have 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 try to treat everybody with dignity and respect. 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 what's your you know and i can can you 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 um 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 do experiments of your own, and 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 what, I think it was Dub Zamban, 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 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 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.

The 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 and 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, it's a disinformation tactic.

It's called the Fire Hose of Falls City. He learned it from Vladimir Putin. Look, I'm sorry, I interrupted you there. No, no, no. But, 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 is just like, 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 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, 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 he lost because he's doubling down in the lie. So now what to do?

The, the journalists that I think know what they're doing in that situation are the ones who are used to interviewing dictators. You see Christian Amunpur 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, et cetera. He didn't have an audience of cheering supporters there. Poor Caitlin Collins. She got way laid. 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. 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 Christiana Amunpur 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 go out 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-sized 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 kind of interviews. They shouldn't platform somebody 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. 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 him get away with just pretending it's all true. I like that. I like that advice. Don't book a liar.

That was Soledat O'Brien was the one who said that. Used to be on CNN. That's why she's not there anymore. But she's awesome. She was a tough, tough cookie. Very tough. The only trouble with that advice is the pool for those who can. talk to is getting smaller all the time if you're not well i mean look yeah that that's true i mean

there 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 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 in a certain level but But you have to, it's the strategic lie. It's not the self-serving lie. 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, 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 ad 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. Exactly same blueprint. And we see the same thing with, you know, the election was rigged or what have you. Exactly.

Here's the same thing. Here's my last question. What is your advice to the consumer of information, the consumer of news, no matter how, 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. yeah what a what's your advice to them the 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 from quotation from Hannah Arendt on page three. She says the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, the 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 ourselves. 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

and then 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. And 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 you know from a point of view especially you know 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. 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. You're not alone. So even though it's MSNBC and people will say, oh, that's just a democratic leaning network, I find her to be very,

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 five to four 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 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, I wrote an earlier book called respecting truth in which I argue there are different ways of respecting and disrespecting truth. Spin Doctrine is not exactly respect for truth, but it's not as bad as lying for the following reason, because spin doctrine 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, right out of the gate, right, 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 Gesson 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 this 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, 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 for 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. This 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, you know, 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 Sirius XM, 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.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, a 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 Medal 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 average. advertising goes. It's not in papers. It's in flyers. Or it's online. Or in 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. You know, 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 of rural and less affluent counties, there are just, is not any local journalism at all. Now, at a time 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, you know, personal and, you know, there's, there are no examples to get. 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, you know, a listener or viewer.

Anyway, the point was, as Lee McIntyre says, you need an active, an active, a 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. And that was our encore edition for this week. From last November, Lee McIntyre, his thoughts on the issue of disinformation. Tomorrow is your turn. Get those answers to the question of the weekend.

I'll be looking for them. Thanks for listening today. Talk to you again tomorrow. Thank you.