In a 2004 study entitled “Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the US Prestige Press,” Maxwell Boykoff and Jules Boykoff found that the norm of “balanced reporting” had caused the New York Times, the Washington Post,

In a world where

“the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction … true and false … no longer exist.”

even the strongest partisans will eventually reach a “tipping point” and change their beliefs after they are continually exposed to corrective evidence.12

ideology trumps science, post-truth is the inevitable next step.

the truth, for then one might be impetuous enough to act on a falsehood. It is important at this point to give at least a minimal definition of truth.

confirmation bias.

make it so. But when our leaders—or a plurality of our society—are in denial over basic facts, the consequences can be world shattering.

and reliably used to shape one’s beliefs about reality. Indeed, the rejection of this undermines the idea that some things are true irrespective of how we feel about them, and that it is in our best interests (and those of our policy makers) to attempt to find them.