This morning, meet the press takes a look at our posttruth society and how a changing media landscape has created chaos out of order. Ill talk to dean baquet and martin baron on the assault on truth from social media, russian acto anatomy of a lie, how a story with just a colonkern kernel of truth can metastasize. Well look at russian techniques for confusing the public with countless versions of the truth. And well discuss all of these issues with a panel of experts on media, journalism, and technology. Welcome to sunday. And alternative facts. A special edition of meet the press. The longest running show in television history, this is a special edition of meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. I hope youre having a merry christmas, a happy hanukkah, and are enjoying this holiday wiig. You have probably never heard of a town in macedonia called vales. This is the town where buzzfeed discovered what was essentially a fake news farm. Some 140 websites pushing out not to help elect trump, the candidate, but simply to make money on facebook. Well, since then, the idea of fake news has become a growth industry, morphing from simply a get rich quick scheme and a former yugoslav republic to a political weapon in our nationalized alternative facts truth isnt truth debuted here on meet the press over the last couple years. But these ideas are not new. Russias government, for instance, now disoriented its populous with so many versions of the truth, it creates what one former russian tv producer called the fog of unknowability. Well, this morning, were going to hear from top players in journalism, diplomacy, and technology about combatting truth manipulation and how russian tactics have migrated right here to the United States. Citizens, of course, are complicit in the spread of false facts. We succumb to confirmation bias too often and reject news we simply dont like. The danger is if we become lost in that fog of unknowability. If truth is pushed into a wood chipper, leaving us to say i dont know what to believe, then alternative facts havent just brought truth to a draw. Alternative facts may have already won. Sean spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that. But the point remains wait a minute, alternative facts . Look, alternative facts are not fact. Theyre falsehoods. On the first full day of the trump administration, the president directed his aides to insist on an easily disprovable lie about his inaugural crowd size. A touch point in an era where facts are under attack. Of course, twisting the facts is nothing new in politics. It depends upon what the meaning of the word is is. The truth is truth. No, it isnt truth. Truth isnt truth. The scale is new. As of december 10th, the president had made 15,413 false or misleading claims in office. That, according to the washington post. Whats also new. The scale of the campaign against the press. Just remember, what youre seeing and what you are reading is not whats happening. In a pew survey this year, just 30 of republicans had a great dea of confidence that journalists will act in the best interests of the public. Compared with 76 of democrats, a 46point gap. Idia, its pretty much slanted left. Facebook remains the number one social network for disinformation. Organized propaganda campaigns were found on the platform in 5 shared the top 100 false political stories over months o. Among them, trumps grandfather was a pimp and a tax evader. His father a member of the kkk. And nancy pelosi was diverting Social Security money for the impeachment inquiry. Clearly, both false. We dont stop people from posting on their page something thats wrong. Mr. Trump is leveraging the polarized political climate. There are four things that disinformation actors do if they want to attack their enemies or defend them sfs against criticism. And you can think of them as the four ds. Number one, dismiss. Attack critics to erode their credibility and invalidate the facts. The fake news. Fake news. I think one of the greatest of all terms i have come up with is fake. Mr. Trump has used the word fake on twitter more than 800 times. Number two, distort. If the facts are against you, make up your own facts. In many places, like california, the same person votes many times. Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people. Number three, distract. Whataboutism or the im rubber youre glue defense. If youre accused of something, accuse someone else of the same thing. Perfect. The call that wasnt perfect and the words that werent perfect were joe biden with respect to his son. Number four, dismay. Threats and intimidation. We are going to take a strong look at our countrys libel laws. One real fear, if both sides normalize disinformation as a political tactic. In fact, in the 2017 Alabama Senate race, a group of democrats did use online disinformation in the campaign against roy moore. Circulating false evidence that russian twitter botses were working to elect moore. My big concern when it comes to disinformation is that were going to see more and more people trying to do the same thing that the russians did in 2016. And joining me now is the executive editor of the washington post, martin baron, and the executor editor of the New York Times, dean baquet. Dean, let me start with this. This is what your chief White House Correspondent peter baker wrote very recently. There are days in washington lately when it feels like the truth itself is on trial. Well, help us make sense of that. I mean, its true. Of course, its ridiculous to say that truth isnt truth. Of course, thats a ridiculous construct. I mean, our job, and its a hard job, but our job and i think our newsrooms have been sort of rebuilt to do this, is to a very aggressively sort out fact from fiction. And to very aggressively work to make sure that people trust us and understand that thats our job. I mean, marty has a very extensive Fact Checking operation, as do we. And those things didnt exist three or four years ago. And theyre in acknowledgment one of the jobs of the news media is to sort through all of the bs, if i can say that. Yeah. And come to some do the kind of deep reporting that we all grew up doing. To come to some sort of understanding of whats actually happening in the world. I think thats one of our largest new jobs. Marty, you tweeted a quote from a column with a question that i actually think crystalizes the challenge. You did this about a year ago. And the column said this, how do you address beliefs when theyre not rooted in reality. How do you tell someone im trying to address your fears but the facts dont exist. This is a challenge. This reminded me of sharia law. All these sharia law is coming. Youre like, its not. You would try to reassure, theres nothing like that, and yet youre like, theres no facts here to support it. Well, look, we live in an environment where people are able to spread crazy conspiracy theories and absolute falsehoods and lies. And thats made possible by the internet and social media. And people are drawn to sources of information, socalled information, that confirms their preexisting points of view. And you know, thats whats contributing to this environment that we have today. You, dean pointed this out about the increase in Fact Checking that both of you as news organizations, we have been doing more of it, but you chronicled over 15,000 false or misleading claims just by the president. Why do you believe thats important, and are you concerned at some point, at 15,000, arent people numb to it . They might be numb tos conc. But we still have the responsibility for determining what is true and whats false. And in particular, holding our government officials accountable for what they say, and telling people whether theyre telling the truth or not telling the truth. Thats fundamental to the responsibilities that we have as journalistic institution. But heres a challenge for both of you. Marty, first to you, and then dean. I want to put up this poll number. When folks were asked in a cbs poll, where do they go for trusted information, among Trump Supporters, they cited the president himself. 91 of Trump Supporters say thats where they go for accurate information. Fact checks be damned here. Well, thats true. And i think thats the way the president would like to have it. He has described us as the opposition party. That goes all the way back to the president ial campaign. He wants us to be perceived as the opposition party, so that people will dismiss anything that we have to say. He wants to disqualify the Mainstream Media as an arbiter of facts and of truth. And he wants to disqualify others. He wants to disqualify the courts, he want to disqualify historians, market the truth, and what i mean by this is, you know, hes out there a lot, delegitimizing our professions. We dont fight back like a candidate. We dont fight back like a campaign. Do we need to start campaigning around the country to say no, no, no, heres how facts work. Heres what reporting is, heres what journalists are. If i utter a fact on tv on purpose i get fired. Journalists took for granted and believed people believed everything we said. They believed that if i filed a story from afghanistan, that we were there. They believed, we believed everybody thought we were in war zones and we believed that people trusted us. And we went through generations of just assuming everybody believed us. What i think were going to have to get very aggressive at is to be really transparent, to assume nothing. And to make sure people know where we are, how we o work, to show our work more aggressively. Thats a different muscle for us. Yes, it is. To my mind, thats a fork of marketing our journalism, when the post did their great project i guess last week, about the buildup to the war in afghanistan and the lies, they put their documents online. They put them online so that i could read them, readers could read them. And could see that it wasnt just three reporters or i guess in this case one reporter sitting in a room making stuff up. The stuff was there. That is not something that we knew how to do ten years ago. We did the same thing when we broke the story of trumps taxes a year ago. We show you the stuff. And i think thats a form of marketing our journalism. I think thats a form, as well as doing what were doing now, which is to be out, for marty and i and others, to be out in the world talking about what we do and very aggressively defending our institutions, defending the truth, and defending our Important Role in democracy. Marty, you go out of your way. I believe you, any time one of your journalists are name checked publicly in a demeaning way, you always publicly go out there and defend them, and it seems as if you dont want to miss anybody that happens to. Why . I think we have a responsibility to stand up for our journalists when theyre right. If were wrong, we should acknowledge that as well. But when theyre unfairly attacked, particularly when a very powerful individual, including the president , uses frankly vile language to describe our journalists, i think its something that we have to fight against. And i want to do that. I want to read you guys a letter to the editor we found in the lexington herald leader. A fascinating attempt to try to explain why some people support President Trump. Heres what he says. Why do good people support trump . Its because people have been trained from childhood to believe in fairy tales. This set their minds up to accept things that make them feel good. The more fairy tales and lies he tells, the better they feel. Show me a person who believes in noahs ark, and i will show you a trump voter. This gets at something, dean, my executive producer likes to say, hey, voters want to be lied to sometimes. They dont always love being told hard truths. You know, im not quite sure i buy that. I mean, politicians historically have lied to people. I mean, i dont want to keep flogging martys terrific afghanistan story, but that was about that was ibt a generation of political leaders who lied in the most egregious way, which was to say a war that was failing and leading to american deaths was actually succeeding. I dont im not convinced that people want to be lied to. I think people want to be comforted. And i think bad politicians sometimes say comforting things to them. And our job is to jump into the breach and to jump into those conversations, to do the deep reporting, to say look, im sorry. What i have to say may be uncomfortable, but that thing you just heard that made you feel good is a lie. I think thats our job. Coal jobs comes into my head. Were going to bring coal jobs back. Thats not going to happen. Right, martsy. We have to be careful. I dont want to be dismissive of people who support the president. They are owed our respect and they certainly have mine, but they feel that the socalled elites in washington have not paid attention to them. That they dont understand their lives, they dont understand their concerns. That they and theyre not being heard. And they feel that the president is actually listening to them. And addressing their concerns. And so they tend to believe him. And theyre deeply suspicious of socalled elites like us. At least people who are described as elites. And so they turn to him. You know, dean, this is something frankly my late father was one of those folks, those new yorkers, they think theyre better than us. He was he would say that every once una while. Do you feel that at the New York Times that because a lot of people dont listen to the New York Times reporting simply because they say, you dont understand my life, so why should i believe what you report. Do you think you have to culturally get the New York Times as in touch with manhattan and brooklyn as they are with missouri . I will have to say, its always odd for me to be called a member of the elite. I grew up in a poor neighborhood in new orleans, louisiana, and had never been outside of louisiana or mississippi until i was about 17 years old. Whenever i go home and my family teases me that im now considered one of the great leaders of the elite, i do think, however, that we have to do a much better job, i agree with what marty said, understanding some of the forces that drive people in parts of america that maybe are not as powerful in new york or los angeles. We have to do a better job covering religion. We have to do a better job understanding why some people support donald trump. I agree with marty. We cant dismiss everybody who supports donald trump. I think we have to get out in america much more than we do and talk to people and sort of figure out ways other than the traditional diner story where people just yes. I think we need to go deeper. I think both of our institutions, no more diners. I think both of our institutions have gotten better at this, just to stew in and let people talk. I often talk about religion because i grew up in a religious, a very religious family. I think, look, people in new york and los angeles, the places i have lived in, not everybody, but people in the worlds we travel dont always see religion as a powerful force that it is. And i think we have to do a better job understanding that. I think we cannot dismiss everybody who supported donald trump, and we just cannot dis miss them. First off, thats not journalistically moral. Its journalistically moral to reach out, understand the world, and to be read. Thats our job. Marty, whats the correct frame when we describe what our journalism is at these main stream news organizations . Is it objective, fair . You hear the word balanced thrown out. Whats the term you prefer . What is the correct framing to describe what our journalism is, i guess, in these main stream news organizations. I think we should be fair, openminded when we approach any story. We should be listeners more than talkers. We should be willing to listen to everyone. And i also think that we need to be fair to the public, which means that when we have done our reporting, when we have done our jobs, when we have been thorough, then we need to tell people what we have actually found. We cant disguise it, we cant muddy it up. We cant, you know, we need to be direct and straightforward and tell people what we have actually learned. And so i believe in being fair in the sense of being openminded, going into a story. But being fair with the public at the end once we have done our jobs, telling them what we have found. A phrase i like to use these days is simply go ahead. I was going to add mine, too. I agree with all those, but empathetic. I think great journalists are empathetic, which means they listen and they try to understand. Thats not pandering. And then i think the most powerful word for me is independent. Independent which means independent of everybody, by the way. Except our principles and our readers. All good words there. I use a phrase these days around here, dont round the edges. Simply say what you see. Marty barron, dean baquet, thank you both. Much appreciated. Have a great new year. When we come back, the anatomy of a lie. How a madeup story can quickly gain currency in our new media landscape. Quickly gain currency in our news media great riches will find you when Liberty Mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. Wow. Thanks, zoltar. How can i ever repay you . Maybe you could free zoltar . Thanks, lady. Taxi only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. In america, the zip code youre born in can determine your future. The y helps fill the opportunity gap with Education Programs for all. For a better us, donate to your local y today. For a better us, johnsbut were also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing, and depression relieving company. From the day youre born we never stop taking care of you. What are you doing back there, junior . Since were obviously lost, im rescheduling my Xfinity Customer Service appointment. Ah, relax. I got this. Which gps are you using anyway . A Little Something called instinct. Been using it for years. Yeah, thats what im afraid of. He knows exactly where were going. My whole body is a compass. Oh boy. The my account app makes todays Xfinity Customer Service simple, easy, awesome. Not my thing. Welcome back. When President Trump spoke to president zelensky in the infamous july 25th phone call, one of the favors he requested involved a Cybersecurity Firm called crowdstrike. They were hired to look into the hacking of the democratic committees server and determined that russia was responsible. Mr. Trump has since suggested that crowdstrike is a ukraine whereinowned company that has spirited this server to ukraine. All in the service of claiming it was ukraine, not russia that interfered in the 2016 election. The claim itself has no basis in fact. Clint watticize a security analyst and the author of messing with the enemy and hes going to help us understand how unfounded allegations like this spread. Good to see you. Were calling this the anatomy of a lie. All successful lies begin with a kernel of truth. Simply, crowdstrike hired to investigate dnc server hack. Very quickly, why crowdstrike and not the fbi in Something Like this . Crowdstrike is a cybersecurity company, one of the best in the world, and one of the best for america, and they routinely work for groups like the dnc. And many large United States companies, and Even International companies. And they have great cyber forensics and the ability to investigate and attribute attributi attribution, and theyre also a resource for our defense. They would all rely on a company like this. For six months, this was taken as stated fact. Crowdstrike, got it. Lets move on to the next one. By the aspring of 17, this was the first time the president started to question crowdstrike. He tweeted something. An a. P. Reporter said why did you bring up crowdstrike . He said i heard its owned by a very rich ukrainian. This is not true. But how do we get to the seed of doubt here . What we saw in the first part is you take a fact and use a fact to propel the lie. This is essentially how you make that falsehood move to where you want it to be. The answer, the story that they want out there, is that ukraine meddled in the election. Theres also other entities that want that story, too. Places like russia where crowdstrike is one of the biggest defensive measure weez have around the world against russian cyberattacks and aggression. This is april of 2017. Lets go to the next slide that we have here. This is President Trump last month in november on fox and friends, where essentially he starts to put it all together. The democrats, they gave the server to crowdstrike. Its a very wealthy ukrainian. A ukrainian company. Thats what the word is. Two and a half years later, hes still perpetuating this, and they even asked, you know, theres not a lot of truth to this, but he says it anyway. Good if you want to propel your lie, just keep issuing falsehoods. The truth has one voice. But lies are infinite. You can continue to make more and more lies, which then wears out anybody trying to rebut them. Okay, the president says these things, and it gets covered. Donald trump ten years ago, this doesnt get covered. Thats right. You can do all of this on social media. You can write 1,000 stories, but the thing that powers all of these narratives the most is when a very influential real human being uses those narratives and advances them. All right, and its not just human beings. Its news organizations or we can put news in quotes here. I want to single out two in particular. Rt and sputnik. They seem to be the launching pad for this specific conspiracy. Thats right. There are four attributes you look for in terms of spreading some sort of propaganda. One, be there first. Two, repeat it over and over and over again. The human mind actually cant resist repetition. Three, its got to come from a trusted source. These are trusted sources. For some people. And black out all rebuttals. If you can narrow people in, if you can say these are fake news and these are not, you can put people in an information cocoon push back and dont have the facts, then you can do this. Lets go to the next slide. Simply ask questions. What is going on . Were not really sure what the deal is. Maybe where are those servers, clint . I have never seen them. You know, why are they looking at that . Why didnt the fbi go into the dnc offices . And here we are. You can make lies faster than you can refute them. If youre a propagandist, you know that. Continue to ask questions. Question more. Also, the motto of the certain russian statesponsored outlet is exhaust the audience with so many possibilities you cant know the truth and theyll walk away. Two facts. Fact number one, as of november of this year, the nrcc, which is the Republican Campaign arm for house races, used crowdstrike to protect the constant contract. And you said this is a russian effort to sort of smear crowdstrike specifically. Why . If russia can disable crowdstrike, if they can take away their customer base, or if they can continue to make people say you dont believe what crowdstrike is doing and saying or providing evidence for, they are actually taking away one of their opponents, and theyre using the American Target audience to do that. Clint watts, this is amazing what the world that we have to e live in now and have to figure out. Thanks for having me. When we come back, the art of spreading disinformation in putins russia. And its echoes right here in good old usa. And its echoes right here in good old usa welcome back. Weve just seen how a russia propaganda technique can be used to get an untruth into the media bloodstream. Its one of many models from putins russia that have found their way into the american political system. I sat down with two experts on propaganda. Masha gessen is author of future is history, how totalitarianism reclaimed russia. And micc amiccal mcfall is curra professor at stanford university. I began by asking them about one particular russian technique. Let me put up something here the rand corporation, one of theuber defense think tanks in america wrote about, the russia propaganda model. I want you to explain how this is implemented. This is how they describe it. They just disseminate an interpretation of emergent events that appears to best favor their themes and objectives. If one falsehood is represented or is not well received, theyll discard it and move on to a new explanation. The combination of high volume, multichannel, and continuous messaging makes russian themes more likely to be familiar to their audiences. Its almost done in real time. Give us an example of how you experienced it. I think that the biggest thing to understand about it is that its not its less about what you would expect, which is pushing some sort of one interpretation, one line. Its more about creating a cacophony. Its youre supposed to come out the other end feeling like theres no such thing as truth. And that is the point . Kind of the way i feel here sometimes. I think were starting to experience it firsthand here. Because you know, and trump has a very good instinctual feel for it. Sometimes he just says things that are the opposite of the facts in front of us. And sometimes he kind of goes, yeah, whatever. Sometimes he says, well maybe that, or maybe this. And then in the end, we feel like, you know, all of these versions of i hesitate to call it reality, are equal, equidistant from the truth. And theres no theres nothing to latch onto. Everything is mush. Mike, i know that i want to bring up two examples of just within russia, and i think it was when you were there, both of these. When soldiers without insignia on their green uniforms seized control of crimea in 2014. At the time, Vladimir Putin repeatedly denied they were russian. A year later, he started to boast that they were there. Then of course, there was the Malaysian Airlines flight 17 shot down over ukraine, and all the various explanations in country that the russian government did. Explain how effective it was internally. Well, internally, i think they have done very well in terms of mastering disinformation, and i agree completely with what masha just said, the goal is not necessarily to present one argument versus the other all the time. Its just to say there are no truths. There are no facts. Its all relative. I have heard Vladimir Putin say that directly when he met with barack obama, president obama one time. Secondly, however, when there are facts, its to put out arguments that say those are the wrong facts, and so the two examples you just used are an illustration of that second tactic. And i would call that also related to that, another tactic, whataboutism, to change the channel, to say you did that there, what about this over here . And that is another tactic that they use to confuse the terrain and to make people you know, to be confused about the facts that there are no facts. And that there are no truths in the world. I want to add something, though, to the crimea story because i think its a really great example. So when he said after a year when he started boasting, yes, there were russians on the ground, he wasnt admitting something everybody knew. He was saying, i assert my right to say whatever i want whenever i want to. Sometimes it will be true, sometimes it wont be. But im king of reality. Right. And what are you going to do about it . Its a power move when he lies and a power move when he tells the truth because only he chooses when he does what. As for the media, yes, russia had not an incredibly healthy independent media, but had some independent media when he became president. And the first thing he did was he moved to take control of broadcast television. Then he moved on National Broadcast television, then local television, then newspapers. Now 20 years later, we have no independent media. All right, and mike, you know this, a lot about putin, heres a quote that was attributed to him that he thinks that said the following when he was asked how he thinks the press works. Heres an owner. They have their own politics, for them its an instrument. The government also is an owner in the media that belonged to the government must carry out our instructions, and media that belonged to a private businessman, they follow their orders. Well, thats his view. Thats most certainly his view and thats why one of the first things he did in the year 2000 was to seize control of two of the National Television networks so that they were completely controlled by the government. He understands the power of media. He has begun to export his ideas through multiple channels, both Digital Media and television. Theres a phrase that i was reading in this research that really struck me and its called toxic cynicism. That that is that that is what is in russia right now. And that is what he hopes to export to the west. And i think we have a lot of it here native born. We have it in the white house. We didnt need help. Now he just added an accelerant. Thats exactly it, an accelerant or an amplifier. I think that he and trump share a basic sense of the world. And their sense of the world is that nothing matters, nothing is true. Nothing is on the level. Nothing is on the level. Yes. Everything is for sale. And money equals power, and power equals money. And its unitary. There can be no checks and balances. There can be no systems. Any formal relationship is always a lie. Mike mcfaul, you were involved, you have met with a lot of dissidents that are actively trying to deal with putin in russia. What breaks him, if he breaks . Well, i think an effective thing is just to keep revealing facts, especially about corruption. People want to know about the facts. And i would say the same thing about our country, too. I think sometimes there is a kind of on the one hand, on the other hand that we present with various political debates in the United States. And here, now, i want to put on my profess orial hat. To treat them as equal is distorting to the truth. If you have one set of hypothesis that has evident to support it and another that has no evidence to support it, reporting on those two in and of itself is a distortion of the facts. And i think russians have learned that. And they keep going back to the facts as their best weapon. And i think we as a society need to do that itself. You dont get your own facts. You can have your own arguments. You can have your own opinions, but two plus two needs to equal four f democrats and republicans every day, not just mondays. Wednesdays, and fridays. By the way, you can see my entire conversation with masha gessen and mike mcfaul on our website. Coming up, choosing the news you use depending on your political beliefs. Fred would do anything for his daughter get in fred even if it means being the back half of a unicorn. Fear not fred the front half washed his shirt with gain detergent. Thats the scent that puts the giddy in giddy up ahhh. The irresistible scent of gain. For a scent with even more giddy up, try gain scent blast in detergent, fabric softener and scent beads. Welcome back. As the countrypolitically, its become more divided in its sources of news. 63 of democrats and democratic leaning voters say they believe journalists have high ethical standards why 36 of democrats say the opposite. 79 of republicans say they think journalists have low ethical standards. Voters are choosing news from sources that reflect their own political views. In 2004, 48 of democrats identified themselves as cnn viewers. By 2018, that number gone up to 56 . Meanwhile, fewer republicans watched cnn, and viewership has dropped in that time span by 6 . 46 of democrats called themselves msnbc viewers. Republican viewership has dropped 14 points. All of which brings us to fox news. Less than a quarter of democrats identified themselves as fox news watchers. But viewership went up 14 among republicans to 58 . This siloing of news sources helps explain why democrats and republicans have become so divided. All politics is no longer local. Its not only been nationalized. Its also been balkanized, and that goes for news too. Were going to try to digest all of what we have heard this morning with a tremendous panel of experts. sensei when i started cobra kai, the lack of control over my business made me a little intense. But now quickbooks helps me get paid, manage cash flow, and run payroll. And now im back on top. With koala kai. vo save over 40 hours a month with intuit quickbooks. Todays Senior Living communities have never been better, with amazing amenities like movie theaters, exercise rooms and swimming pools, public cafes, bars and bistros even pet care services. And theres never been an easier way to get great advice. A place for mom is a free service that pairs you with a local advisor to help you sort through your options and find a perfect place. A place for mom. You know your family we know Senior Living. Together well make the right choice. In connemara. Right connemara it is theres one gift the whole family can share this holiday season, their story. Give the gift of discovery, with an ancestrydna kit. Welcome back. Our panel is here. Joshua johnson is former host now of 1a on npr, and soon to be a bigger part of the nbc news family. Kara swisher is co founder and editor of recode, tech news and analysis website, also the author of a growingly popular column in tthe New York Times. Susan glasser, and matthew continet continetti. Good to have you all. Kara, i want to start in your world of tech. The one thing we havent touched on as much as sort of social media. We talked about it on the sides, but sort of the role social media is playing in this misinformation campaign. Mark zuckerberg and jack dorsey are kind of having a debate. Let me play a clip from mark zuckerberg. I certainly worry about an erosion of truth. I dont think most people want to live in a world where you can only post things that Tech Companies judge to be 100 true. Jack dorsey, head of twitter, actually seemed to disagree with him. This isnt about free express n expression. This is about paying for reach and paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramification that todays democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. Yes, well, thats the two sides of it, and google sits in the middle. Its trying to figure out a way between them. Marks idea is hes conflating free speech with paid speech. Its purposely confusing to people. Anybody can say anything on their platforms. On twitter, for example, donald trump continues to tweet, as you noticed this week, perhaps, but his campaign doesnt get to do paid advertising. Thats a very different thing. Whats really interesting is balkanization has been around forever, and early, you look at george washington, all those days. That was very partisan crowds on every bit of media. The issue is when you get into the social media space, it becomes three things. Weaponized, amplifieamplified, becomes anonymous. Then you can repeat lies and they take a vierality and create engagement that leads to enragement. Do it again, lather, rinse, repeat. Thats what goes on. This, to me, look, this is not new. I mean, Lyndon Johnson has always credited with saying i dont know if its true or not. Just say it and make them deny it. The idea of disinformation, but social media makes it where the space between whats first reported and the fake part almost has gotten reversed. Its faster. Its amplified. You have to think of amplified and weaponization, because it repeats and repeats itself and its not controllable in a different way. I do think that social media, what you described about engagement and enragement, which is very true, exposes part of the problem and maybe part of the solution for those of us who consider ourselves journalists. I think one of the issues that i have with the way were fighting back against this is were trying to fight back with information. But journalists are not in the information business. We are in the trust business. Trust is an emotion. You compete headtohead. You connect hearttoheart and the enragement speaks to the fact people are seeing information that provokes an emotional response. Trust is emotional too. Like love. You dont remember when you fell in love, necessarily. You dont remember when you decided to trust journalism, but that emotion is broken. Part of what we have to do is acknowledge theres a heart piece of this, people are trusting these lies and this misinformation, and a lot of them are just damn lies. But they work. They give you comfort. They make you feel like the world hasnt changed in ways you dont understand. And it doesnt mean we affirm the lie. It doesnt mean we dont speak the truth, but if were ignoring the human part of this, none of what were doing is going to work. Matthew, hes getting at what i wanted you to tease at, which is its almost the cultural connection that the right has decided it doesnt have with Mainstream Media, so it doesnt matter what we report. Well, you dont understand my life so why should i care . That culture disconnect is decades old. What gives us this perfect storm of alttruth is a few things. One isou technological change, which kara mentioned. Another is the institutional breakdown, which i think you showed earlier in the program. Confidence in the big institutions is just totally thank god for congress or woo would be at the bottom. Then President Trump who benefits from both of the change t amplify his message. So what you end up with is this place where no one can really agree on the very basic material governing our democracy. I think the important thing, though, is to recognize that this just didnt organically happen. You know, this also comes in the context of a war on the institution of independent journalism. A war on the notion of truth that has served the political interest of, you know, institutions in the country. I mean, i think fox news has waged a purposeful campaign over decades chemo a. In the next 72 hours, i will leave to talk about the military, but i want to talk about our context in this policy with the Islamic Republic of iran. Iraqis threatened american forces. This has been going on now for weeks and weeks and weeks. This wasnt the first set of attacks against this particular iraqi facility and others where there are american lives at risk. Today what we did was take a decisive response that makes clear what President Trump has said for. Its not a battle, were not fighting against it, the ukraine thing. Its ridiculous. Its very clear this is a lie. Ive been there. Trust me, theyre americans running it. And now you have the president of the United States amplifying that. Youre being targeted. This paid advertising is targeted. So they can whisper a thousand different lies in a million different years. Thats what the difference is. You cant get to the heart because they amplify andal al l andalgorhythmically do it so you cant get it right. Its the sub of trump, then it starts inching in the mainstream and the pundit says, whats this about . Then they might have a provocative headline link, he says it in a friendly way and then it makes it to your facebook feed. How do you have accountability for basically dealing with propaganda . Its hard work. It begins by trying to construct the Young Conservatives in the annals of jo institutions thats longstanding amongeed no evidence to forward a fact. Or they dont believe in certain verified sources, credentialed sources of information. They dont trust any of it. One other change that makes this difficult is it used to be you could go to the supermarket and you see the tabloids and the weekly world news, and the aliens have predicted who will be the president this year, and you move past it. Maybe some people get a chuc maybe some people believe it, but its the minority of the population. Today you cant ignore it because its everywhere. The second you go on one of these platforms, social media in particular, youre confronted by it. I hear you in terms of the distrust among conservatives of institutions right about that. I do, however, know a lot of conservatives who are godfearing people and who remember that the bible says its better to tie a millstone around your neck than lead the little ones astray. The bible verse says the truth shall set you free. They know the book of proverbs. They know the first two chapters are all about value of truth and a necessity of personal responsibility. I think it is crazy that there are people who say its just too hard. Theres so much going on up there, theres so much information. We want a world war against the nazis where we invented a new bomb and planted Victory Gardens and put women in factories. You mean to tell me you wont subscribe to the local paper . Really . Is this too hard . It goes to what is the responsibility of the citizen here . Dont be gullible. Dont make room for gullibility any more. It is hard to fight it. Its repetitive. It is doing things in ways that have never been possible through a newspaper. By the way, nobody is reading newspapers and shouldnt be. This is great to be able to get this information on your phone. With conservatives, there is a great book by andrew merits called antisocial that showed this chain. You didnt even need the chain anymore. Its rudy giuliani. Its just a lie now. Theres no bother. They go straight to it, then it gets critiqued. This ecosystem is so well embedded now in how one party is communicating with its core people that its a chain that works. I agree with cara. Not only can you not break it, but their design, their goal is to get people to say, i dont care. Not even necessarily to say i believe this lie. Their goal is not necessarily to persuade the unpe ukraine intervened in the 2016 election. Thi their goalbout the 2020 election and were talking at the very end of 2019, this is going to be the major driver, really, in politics. When you think about persuading people who tilted this last election in 2016, a handful of people arguably who might have voted for barack obama and then somehow also for donald trump. People who arent necessarily living in the information world that we are. And i fear that group of voters is the group of voters who are saying, i cant possibly think of objective truth. This is also a political tactic, matthew. We are now aware that there is some politicians who want to come on this show because theyre hoping to get a borrowed moment to use for fundraising. The minute weve caught wind of that and we wont put folks on. This has a lot to do with the changing of the nature of our institutions. You used to join our institution to be part of this kind of history that preceded you and will go after you. Now institutions are platforms for individuals. And this is what makes this is the reason why the platforms are now the locust of so much attention whether its media attention, cultural attention or government attention, right . Theyre the new sites of regulatory battles because they are the guardrails. The social media knocked down all the other guardrails, right . Now the platforms themselves are the guardrails and they are going to be the heart of our politics for the next decade. And theyre unregulated. A libertarian society, were seeing the perils of it, joshua . There are a few things that give me hope. One is young people. I think young people are increasingly savvy to the very things youre talking about. They have decided there is certain social media they can trust more than others. And the other, i got to say, in three years of hosting, theres one thing that hasnt failed is telling the audience, if you let this evolve into stupidity, the alien will turn you off. Thats all we have for todays special broadbroadcast. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching all year. Here at meet the press we wish you a happy and safe new year. Well see you next week in 2020. Because if its sunday, its meet the press. Press. Apps are used everywhere. Except work. Why is that . Is it because people love filling out forms . Maybe they like checking with their supervisor to see how much Vacation Time they have. Or sending corporate their expense reports. Ill let you in on a little they dont. By empowering employees to manage their own tasks, paycom frees you to focus on the business of business. To learn more, visit paycom. Com until i found out what itst it actually wasred me. Eeeeeww dead skin cells gross so now, i grab my swiffer sweeper and heavyduty dusters. Duster extends to three feet to get all that gross stuff gotcha and for that nasty dust on my floors, my sweepers on it. The textured cloths grab and hold dirt and hair no matter where dust bunnies hide. No more heebie jeebies. Phew. Glad i stopped cleaning and started swiffering. Welcome to a special yearend edition of kc than 2019, believe it or not. We will preview, if possible, all that lies ahead. Sto plus my conversation with Boston Center enes kanter. And ill be