Futurist/environmentalist Alex Steffen: "A free press must mean a press in open opposition to Trump"

[highplainsdem]

Brilliant series of tweets from Steffen on the threat Trump poses and how the media must respond:

https://twitter.com/AlexSteffen

https://twitter.com/AlexSteffen/status/803058400565207041

It is very clear in America today, that a free press—based on reporting facts—must mean a press in open opposition to president-elect Trump.

Trump has shown himself to be a liar, unstable, corrupt, ignorant of democracy, disdainful of press freedom + willing to target journalists.

There's no there, there. There's no presidency as we have understood it, with which the press can take its preferred role of loyal challenge

Journalism, policy, academia must stand for the same bedrock truths, whatever else we disagree on. Trump doesn't value those truths, at all

This is not about ideology or party affiliation. This is about whether 2 plus 2 does, or does not. equal 5 in America now.

My feed is full of journalists bemoaning a nation where evidence, context + reason matter less + less. I get it: try writing about climate.

A main driver of that disrespect for reason, though, is the media's willingness to engage overt lies as if they were just contested truths.

At what extremity must we find ourselves before we say, simply and truly: This man is a liar. We will not treat his statements as credible.

Think long and hard about the answer. Because this democracy's whole future may depend upon it. A nation cannot be governed without truth.

[pbmus]

1. Right the fuck on it...

[hatrack]

2. Reality can be ignored . . . for a while.

And the longer it's ignored, the greater the price paid upon awakening.

[longship]

3. More likely... the correction!

It may be a rather brutal backlash.

I hope I am wrong.

[tanyev]

4. I guess we will soon find out who are real journalists and who are just pretty newsreaders.

I fear there are not many of the former.