In 1959, I failed the third grade. Two Sisters of St. Joseph delivered the news to my parents and me. It was devastating. Children can be cruel, and for a long time I carried the label “stupid.”
The next year, I learned I was dyslexic. I did not lack the ability to learn; I learned differently and more slowly. I learned to compensate. By my junior year of high school, prestigious universities such as Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Harvard reached out to me.
All of them begged me not to apply to their fine institutions and recommended avoiding the draft by enlisting in the military instead.
You thought this conversation was going in a different direction, huh? (An attempt at humor.)
Eventually, I spent nearly 50 years in journalism and recently taught news literacy at Florida Gulf Coast University.
But that early experience taught me something valuable: Humility is not a weakness. It is the willingness to admit what we may not know, that we often misunderstand, and that we may need to change our minds. That is where the search for truth begins.
That lesson feels especially urgent now. The familiar political question asks whether we are better off than we were four years ago. Another question is worth asking: Are we living better together?
For much of modern American history, citizens began the day with editors, a newspaper, a radio newscast, or a morning television program. Editors were expected to ask whether information was verified, important, and in the public interest. They did not always succeed, and journalism has never deserved unquestioning trust. But the profession at least established a public journalism standard by which its work could be judged.
Today, many of us start the day with a smartphone. We no longer see the same front page. Algorithms select information based on what we click, watch, like, share, and linger over. Their central question is not, “Is this true?” It is, “Will this keep the user engaged?” Outrage, fear, and affirmation are very good at that.
Technology did not invent our capacity for self-deception. It industrialized it.
Confirmation bias leads us to notice information that supports what we already believe. Identity can make contrary evidence feel like an attack on our group, and therefore on us. Motivated reasoning turns us into lawyers defending a position rather than judges weighing evidence.
The result is often described as a post-truth culture. That does not mean truth has disappeared. It means objective facts can lose influence when they clash with emotion, identity, or a preferred narrative. The traditional sequence of gathering facts, debating their meaning, and reaching a conclusion is reversed. We reach a conclusion, collect facts that support it, and reject those that do not. The question shifts from “Is it true?” to “Does it support my side?”
None of us is immune. Intelligence and education do not eliminate bias; sometimes they just make us better at defending it. The relevant test is not whether other people are gullible. It is whether we care enough about truth to examine our own beliefs and whether we would want to know when one of them is wrong.
This is where journalism still matters. Journalism is not a promise of perfection. It is a disciplined process for determining what happened as events unfold: Interviewing witnesses, examining documents, seeking independent confirmation, distinguishing fact from allegation, providing context, acknowledging uncertainty, and correcting errors.
We should not trust journalism because journalists are always right. They are not. We should extend trust in proportion to the strength of the process and a news organization’s willingness to correct the record when that process fails. A report is not biased merely because the evidence does not support the conclusion we preferred. A physician is not biased because an X-ray reveals a fracture when the patient expected arthritis. Evidence is not obligated to make us comfortable.
In news-literacy classes, we use a simple test: VIA, which stands for verification, independence, and accountability. What evidence supports the claim? Who produced the information, and whose interests may be influencing it? Who stands behind it, explains how they know, and corrects mistakes? VIA does not ask whether a source agrees with us. It asks whether the source has earned credibility.
Citizens can practice the same discipline. Pause before sharing a claim that makes you angry, afraid, or triumphant. Read beyond the headline. Distinguish reporting from opinion. Consult more than one credible source, not to manufacture artificial balance, but to see more of the evidence. Understand that your feed is a customized product, not a neutral window on the world. And when the facts require it, revise a belief or correct a falsehood you helped spread.
Those habits sound modest. Their democratic importance is not. We can disagree honestly about immigration, war, artificial intelligence, climate, debt, public health, and almost everything else. But honest disagreement requires a shared foundation of verified facts. Without it, public life becomes a contest of power, loyalty, and volume.
Truth is not merely a private possession or an intellectual trophy. What we accept as true shapes how we vote, whom we trust, whom we fear, and how we treat one another. Technology can manufacture images, imitate voices, and repeatedly show us what we want to believe. That does not relieve us of responsibility. It increases it.
Seeking truth is difficult and accepting it can be uncomfortable. Seeking it anyway is an act of courage and a duty we owe one another. Our individual relationship with truth shapes our character. And our collective relationship with truth shapes the quality of our democracy and whether we can live better together.
*This column is a summary of a talk I delivered to The Rotary Club of Bonita Springs on August 4th. My thanks to Press Club member Julie Pedretti for the invitation.