Rising Epidemic Of Political Lying Harvard Gazette

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer Founder of PolitiFact discusses case studies from his new book that reveal how we got to where we are now Many Americans feel like the spin and outright lying in politics has gotten worse in recent decades. And that it’s not a good thing. Bill Adair agrees. The founder of PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, fact-checking website, looks at the problem in new book, “Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could...

“For many years, no political journalist that I’d ever worked with nor myself had ever asked a politician: Why do you lie? And so it’s sort of this topic that is omnipresent and yet never discussed. I decided to discuss it, and I decided to ask politicians about it,” said Adair, the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Please contact the HUIT Service Desk if this problem persists. Findings suggest colibactin may be promising target for disease prevention

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Consistent focus needed on best practices, rules, procedures. Instances of politicians perpetuating falsehoods in public discourse have become disturbingly commonplace in recent times. Bill Adair, the creator of PolitiFact—a Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking platform—referred to this trend as “the epidemic of political lying” in a book he published last year. Dishonesty has seeped into political and governmental spheres, encompassing everything from trivial fabrications to grandiose falsehoods, often strategically crafted to consolidate political clout or cling to power. Over the past decade, swathes of research have pointed to the dire consequences of this phenomenon: the proliferation of disinformation, which wreaks havoc on society in the form of polarization, manipulation, and, at its... However, the problem transcends isolated shortcomings by individual officials.

When deceit evolves from ad hoc missteps to an orchestrated strategy—where state apparatuses construct intricate networks dedicated to the dissemination of deception—the stakes grow exponentially higher. Though state propaganda is far from new, recent decades have seen an explosion of more sophisticated tactics, radically altering the global communication equilibrium. The advent of social media has added fuel to this fire, empowering governments like never before. These digital platforms, for all their initial promise of amplifying marginalized voices, have increasingly provided authorities with a direct pipeline to the public. Consequently, state-sponsored messaging has blanketed the online landscape, magnifying curated narratives far and wide. Even so, the government’s informational dominance is not confined to the digital realm alone.

Substantial volumes of strategic messaging still flow through conventional media channels—such as television broadcasters, print media, and online news platforms. Unsurprisingly, steering the editorial direction of such outlets remains high on the agenda for most governments. Ironically, the very tool leveraged in government propaganda, disinformation, proves instrumental in cementing government control in the media as well. Governments, it seems, walk a fine line in their approach to disinformation by wearing two hats. On one side, they orchestrate the spread of propaganda and false narratives through media under state control or influence. On the other, they purport to curb disinformation by implementing so-called anti-disinformation laws that more often than not act as a smokescreen for clamping down on press freedom and muzzling critical journalism.

Berkman Klein Multipurpose Room (Room 515) 1557 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 How and why do politicians lie? And how can we, the public, keep the facts in check–even in the face of increased mis- and disinformation online? The Institute for Rebooting Social welcomes Bill Adair to discuss his new book, Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our... The conversation will address the processes politicians use to skew information across the media landscape, the consequences these practices have on our democracy, and potential solutions to foster a healthier, more accurate political system.

This event is part of the RSM Fall Speaker Series, and will be held at the Berkman Klein Center (room 515) from 12:30pm-1:30pm ET. Lunch will be served! In-person attendance is limited to Harvard ID holders, but the general public is invited to attend virtually via Zoom. Political lying has become a widespread threat in the United States and across the globe. With less than two weeks away from the presidential election, the site PolitiFact has been fact- checking American politicians left and right since 2007. From former President Donald Trump’s outright lie that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, to Vice President Harris’ mostly false claim that Trump intends to cut Medicare, fact checkers in...

have been working tirelessly to identify and correct misinformation. Bill Adair, founder of Politifact, is author of the new book Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How it Could Burn Down Our Democracy. Adair examines how and why politicians use their platforms to lie. He draws from candid interviews with politicians and experts on why Republicans are spreading the most lies and the dire consequences it has for our democracy. Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance has recently said that Trump did not lose the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, which raises serious concerns about the Trump campaign’s response if he loses to Harris in November.

Political liars featured in Adair’s book range from former President Richard Nixon to the couch guests and hosts on Fox & Friends. It reveals how Republicans have repeatedly tried to influence the news media, tech companies and people in government for their benefit. It offers insight and solutions to help solve the crisis of political lying. BIANNA GOLODRYGA, ANCHOR: Well, now, as Americans gear up for the election, our next guest warns of an epidemic of lying in U.S. politics, particularly within the Republican Party. Bill Adair joins Michel Martin to discuss his new book, “Beyond the Big Lie.” As founder of fact checking website PolitiFact, he is well placed to account for where disinformation comes from, how it...

MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Bianna. Bill Adair, thank you so much for talking with us. BILL ADAIR, FOUNDER, POLITIFACT AND AUTHOR, “BEYOND THE BIG LIE”: Thank you for having me. MARTIN: People who follow politics may know you, because you’ve been around since two — well, you’ve been around for a while. You were in newspapers before, but you founded PolitiFact in 2007. Just — if you would just tell the story of why you decided to start this.

Like, how did the whole thing start? ADAIR: So, I started PolitiFact in 2007 when I was The Washington Bureau Chief for the St. Petersburg Times, the biggest newspaper in Florida, and now the Tampa Bay Times. But the roots of it really go back farther to when I was covering the White House and Congress. And PolitiFact sort of grew out of my own guilt, because I felt like, as a Washington reporter and as a political reporter, I was not doing much fact checking and I felt like... So, if you think about that time period, 2003, 2004, 2005, there were — the Internet was just kind of getting going as a source of information and misinformation.

And there was — there were a lot of things that people were wondering, is that true? And so, I went to my editors and said, hey, for the 2008 election, let’s start a fact checking website. And so, they agreed to that. What was different with PolitiFact is that there had been other good fact checking efforts, most notably factcheck.org from the University of Pennsylvania. What we did differently is we created a rating system on our Truth-O-Meter from true to false with our lowest rating, pants on fire. And we also kept score by person, so we could tell you how many true, half true, false ratings any particular person had.

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