‘Belonging Is Stronger Than Facts’: The Age of Misinformation
The problem is not misinformation. The problem is that people no longer trust &quot;experts,&quot; &quot;authority,&quot; &quot;scientists&quot; etc as much as they used to, because that trust was betrayed. When you lie to people repeatedly about something important, they stop trusting you. That&#x27;s why we have that story about the boy and wolves.<p>Stop blaming the public for believing &quot;misinformation&quot; and &quot;conspiracy theories.&quot; In the past few years, many of those &quot;conspiracy theories&quot; have turned out to be more truthful than what you were telling them. They&#x27;re just being rational actors.<p>If you (the media establishment) want your relevancy back, you&#x27;re not going to get it by insulting your former audience at higher and higher volume. If you want people to start listening to you again, you&#x27;re going to have to stop lying for money (or at least drastically cut down on it). Barring that, you will continue to fade into obsolescence, replaced with a field of new info sources.