The Free Press: How a War on Truth Threatens Democracy | Wesley Lowery | Big Think

The Free Press: How a War on Truth Threatens Democracy Watch the newest video from Big Think: Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “We love, as a culture, to attack messengers when the message is something that makes us feel uncomfortable,” says journalist Wesley Lowery. It’s no coincidence, says Wesley Lowery, that freedom of the press was one of the first things that the U.S. founders enshrined in the Constitution. It was people of that time’s ability to report on and openly discuss their situation that sparked the revolution. It became clear then that a free press is the ultimate safeguard for democracy. So what happens when that press is undermined? The 2016 election was unprecedented in its bending of the truth. The emphasis on fact-checking during the debates, the clear Twitter evidence and past-interview quotes that were exhibited but still denied, and the disregard for accountability of past actions came into direct conflict with what is known to be the truth. The media was delegitimized in a very public way – there are big ramifications to that, says Lowery. He fears we are entering a post-truth age, where fact is no longer objective – one where elected officials can point-blank say their bill will do something it definitely won’t, or deny something they are on record saying. The media becomes the villain in the wake of this, accused of bias – a big enough distraction for some to let the official shimmy away without repercussion. Lowery has first-hand experience in the villainizing of the media – he was one of three journalists arrested in 2014 while covering the Ferguson protests. What the Black Lives Matter movement brings to light for him, besides the core message, is that here is a case of the media being held accountable for the actions of others. “We love, as a society, as a culture, to attack messengers when the message is something that makes us feel uncomfortable,“ says Lowery. “So reporters who reported on things like police shootings and race and justice became the targets because if only you could discredit them, if you could prove they had some vendetta or some bias that they were really just some liberal operative then you didn’t have to engage at all with what they were saying.“ When the public stops believing that reported journalism is the truth, learns to cry “bias“ as a knee-jerk reaction to bad news, and is jockeyed into a habit of mistrust and ’blaming the messenger’ by elected officials, it guillotines journalism as a democratic protector. Lowery’s book is “They Can’t Kill Us All“: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WESLEY LOWERY : Wesley Lowery is a national reporter for the Washington Post who covers law enforcement, justice, race and politics. He previously covered Congress and national politics. Prior to joining the Washington Post in February 2014, he worked as a breaking news and local politics reporter for the Boston Globe, and has also reported for the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. In 2014, he was named the National Association of Black Journalists’ “Emerging Journalist of the Year.“ Follow him on Twitter @WesleyLowery. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT : Wesley Lowery: I think that we’ve seen an unprecedented assault on our media. We’ve seen a deep villainization of our free press. And, in fact, a war on objectively true information that when something is reported that someone does not like you can just say it’s not true whether it is or not. You can try to undercut the messenger and talk about how these are just biased reporters, don’t listen to them. When, in fact, often these are fair reporters who’ve worked very hard to get things right. That has real ramifications. I mean we’re facing the prospect of living in a world that is post truth where there are no objective truths. Where you can tell me the sky is purple, the sky is green when in fact we’re looking at it and we see that it’s blue. That becomes very dangerous potentially for democracy, right. Because in a world in which the truth is unknowable how do we make governing decisions and then also how do we hold people accountable? How do we demand better of our elected officials if our elected official do not have to acknowledge reality at any point in time, right. They can just tell us that no, they did not say the thing they said. No this policy would not do the things we know it would do. I think that’s particularly dangerous and I think that it’s difficult. Read the full transcript at