Truth is the real battleground for 2020

Two weeks ago, as many Americans were watching the impeachment hearings, I attended a cyber security conference in Washington, D.C. It was a public event, but I was surprised several attendees made a show of their apparent allegiance to Russia. Two of them spoke loudly in Russian, and another wore a Russian intelligence service tie pin.

It is possible the Russian speakers were not Russian at all. But it is also possible they wanted to flaunt their affiliation with the Kremlin. Whoever they were, they certainly wanted to signal they can operate in the open.

And why would they hide? That very week, Republican members of Congress perpetuated the Kremlin-born, fictional narrative that Ukraine — not Russia — is responsible for hacking the 2016 U.S. election. Like all “information warfare,” that lie, which intelligence services attribute to Putin, was designed to create confusion and mistrust.

Russia has been seeding similar lies in the United States for years. But according to the Senate Intelligence Committee — led by North Carolina Republican Richard Burr — Putin has ramped up its efforts here since the 2016 election, producing “a firehose of falsehood” designed to foster existing divisions in American society.

In a report released earlier this fall the majority Republican committee wrote “information warfare … is a struggle over information and truth.” Our free and open press is a “strategic target.” Putin wants Americans to be confused, cynical, passive and overwhelmed, to think the truth is unknowable.

Those adjectives certainly describe many North Carolinians. A retired pastor in Western North Carolina told me it’s impossible to know the truth about the president’s actions in Ukraine. “They all lie.” Nor can he trust the media because it’s all so biased; “there are no more Walter Cronkites.”

North Carolinians are not alone in their cynicism. Polls show Americans don’t place much trust in our institutions, and a Knight Foundation survey found almost 70 percent of Americans — including virtually all conservatives — have lost trust in the media.

In short, we’re right where our foreign adversaries want us.

As a former journalist, I’m the first to admit most cable news is unbearably biased. But that doesn’t mean the truth is unknowable. Americans must find news sources with actual reporters (not aggregators), fact-checkers and editors and read a variety of sources. This paper carries national news stories articles from the Associated Press and McClatchy. Want more? If you’re a conservative, spend the money on the Wall Street Journal. If you’re center-left, read the New York Times. Better yet, read them all.

Unfortunately, Americans have come to believe news should be free. And they now base their beliefs on social media posts of unknown authorship. I’m repeatedly astonished by readers who send me “news stories” from known conspiracy purveyors such as The Epoch Times or World Net Daily.

Who wrote what Americans believe? Burr’s committee found the Kremlin generated 61,500 U.S. Facebook posts, 116,000 Instagram messages, and 10.4 million tweets before the election. Then “numerous high profile US persons” such as Roger Stone and Sean Hannity unwittingly spread the lies.

Expect it will get worse. Oxford University recently found “social media manipulation campaigns” in 70 countries, up from only 28 countries in 2017. And no one really knows how to combat “deep fakes”: video and audio which seems real but which has been altered.

Our minds are the battlefield, so watch what you read. Because our democracy depends on it.