The Real National Emergency: A Society That Can’t Tell Fact from Fiction

I have often declined to comment on highly sensitive political and economic issues—not because I lack opinions, but because I increasingly struggle to get to the facts. That problem is no longer the exception; it is the rule.

I support RAND Corporation as an advisor and donor precisely because it stands almost alone in insisting on rigorous, independent, non-partisan research and transparency. In 2019, then-CEO Michael Rich co-authored Truth Decay, which captured this crisis perfectly: we are losing our shared grasp of reality. When leaders, media, and the public cannot agree on basic facts, rational debate collapses.

This decay has accelerated over the past 50 years. National media, once limited by broadcast schedules, became hooked on advertising revenues and the need to shock audiences into attention. Steven Stark’s 1993 book Glued to the Set chronicled how television adopted the tabloid philosophy: “if it bleeds, it leads.”

Politicians, the media, and policy advocates want everything to be "crises," or "emergencies" or even "existential threats," three labels used far too often to amp up interest in news stories.

I experienced this directly as Pitney Bowes’ CEO two decades ago. A service manager was shot in our Scottsdale, Arizona, parking lot. Cable outlets immediately labeled it an example of the "workplace violence crisis,” filling hours with experts describing a narrative that, as it turned out, the facts did not support. By the time police revealed it was a personal dispute—a jealous boyfriend targeting someone else—the story was dropped, with no correction. Sensationalism mattered more than truth.

This hunger to be first worsened with 24/7 cable news. When CNN was joined by Fox News, MSNBC, and CNBC, speed and drama displaced accuracy.

I faced this earlier after the 2001 anthrax mailings. As head of our industry association, I fielded over 80 media interviews in a month. The odds of any ordinary person receiving contaminated mail were astronomically low—one in a billion. But fear sold better than perspective. Even when the FBI quickly determined the anthrax originated domestically, coverage evaporated rather than corrected itself.

That problem is far worse today, for five reasons.

First, media partisanship: Reporters, editors, and on-air personalities increasingly see themselves not as truth-seekers but as narrative-shapers. Facts that disrupt preferred storylines are minimized or ignored.

Second, social media algorithms: Negativity, outrage, and falsehood generate clicks and ad dollars. Platforms knowingly amplify misinformation because it is sticky. I have personally seen government interviews altered between live and edited versions—producing two different “realities” for two audiences.

Third, declining reliability of government data. As Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Kiernan recently documented, falling survey participation has undermined core economic statistics. Caller ID means fewer people answer surveys. Non-response biases grow. Jobs data swing wildly with revisions. Yet the press reports each release as if gospel, even though the “truth” keeps shifting.

Fourth, the collapse of polling accuracy. Recent presidential elections have repeatedly understated support for Donald Trump, in part because voters fear expressing their views. Pollsters cannot measure what people will not reveal.

Fifth—and, perhaps most dangerous—the rise of highly credible deepfakes. Artificially generated videos and audio can fabricate interviews or speeches so convincingly that even intelligent audiences are fooled. I wrote on LinkedIn about a fake video that made a woman already vilified in a viral clip look even crueler. Most viewers believed it. Their outrage was real; the video was not.

All of this is compounded by a deeper, systemic failure: we have neglected to teach critical thinking. Schools focus on standardized tests and compliance with mandates, not on equipping students to interrogate claims, weigh evidence, and change conclusions when facts change. Calls for “civics education” fall short if citizens cannot tell truth from fiction. An engaged but gullible public is combustible.

Critical thinking requires humility—the willingness to say, “I don’t know yet” or “I may have been wrong.” In Scottsdale, new facts completely overturned the initial narrative. With anthrax, a six-year FBI investigation concluded a lone researcher, Dr. Bruce Ivins, was probably responsible—but he died before trial, and even an independent review questioned the strength of the evidence.

In public debates, however, hesitation is treated as weakness. Friends and colleagues sometimes accuse me of being indecisive when I withhold judgment. But their confidence is often built on sand. Nowhere is this clearer than in discussions of climate change. The term itself is vague, and while risks are real, long-range models remain incomplete. When someone says “the science is settled,” I am certain they are oversimplifying. Science is never settled; it is provisional, self-correcting, and often wrong along the way.

Education must shift from rewarding rote regurgitation to cultivating critical reasoning. The urgency is magnified because AI systems now mediate so much of our access to knowledge. Yet AI can be confidently wrong. Just last night, using ChatGPT for directions in Frankfurt Airport, I received calm, authoritative instructions that were completely false. A Lufthansa employee provided the correct path. If we cannot distinguish between confidence and accuracy, AI will entrench errors at scale.

We must train ourselves to ask: What is a fact, and what is a model or forecast? What do statistics prove, and what do they not? Headlines like “hottest month on record” may rest on statistical noise or on selective measures. Was the change driven by daytime highs or nighttime lows? How many sampling points exist? Without statistical literacy, we are easy prey for manipulation.

Likewise, models deserve skepticism. Forecasts that glaciers in Glacier National Park would vanish by 2020 proved wrong. Scientists should explain not only what they miscalculated but why future models should be trusted. Accountability for failed predictions is essential.

Finally, we must reject efforts to silence skepticism. When dissenting voices are intimidated or excluded, “consensus” becomes suspect. Healthy debate depends on the freedom to question.

The crisis of truth is not abstract—it corrodes democracy, markets, and civic trust. RAND’s Truth Decay warned us that without shared facts, societies cannot solve problems. That warning has only grown more urgent.

We must rebuild our culture around three imperatives:

1. Revive critical thinking as the centerpiece of education.
2. Hold media and platforms accountable for accuracy and corrections.
3. Insist on humility in science and policy, recognizing the difference between data, models, and speculation.

The alternative is grim: a nation paralyzed by dueling falsehoods, manipulated by algorithms, and unable to distinguish reality from illusion.

Truth may be elusive, but it is not expendable. Without it, everything else, including our health and wellbeing, collapses.