Pretty Basic Stuff

But how much better off everyone would be if they just followed these basics:

On Covid-19 Fake News

I received a lovely note the other day from a reader named Rose. While I am pleased she finds my blog a useful resource, I am also happy that she included a very pertinent link as an aide in spotting fake news, especially that involving our current pandemic. I shall return to that link in a moment.

But first, how big a problem is disinformation during this time of fear and uncertainty?

The Guardian cites the growing problem of prominent people who apparently have more fame than brains:

The actor Woody Harrelson and the singer MIA have faced criticism after sharing baseless claims about the supposed connection of 5G to the pandemic, while comments by the likes of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, playing down the scale of the crisis in the face of scientific evidence have attracted criticism in recent days.

Such ravings have consequences.

The issue has gained extra prominence as Britons began vandalising mobile phone masts in recent days amid wildly sharing baseless claims linking the virus to 5G.

There is growing concern that online disinformation could be having real world health impacts. Research by Dr Daniel Allington, senior lecturer in social and cultural artificial intelligence at King’s College London, suggested there was a statistically notable link between people who believed false claims about the coronavirus and people who were willing to flout the government’s social distancing guidelines.

His findings, based on a experimental study conducted in coordination with the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, found that people who said they believed coronavirus was connected to 5G mobile phone masts are less likely to be staying indoors, washing their hands regularly or respecting physical distancing.

Even more unhinged is Roseanne Barr who, in a phone interview with Norm Macdonald, had this to say about the bug:

"You know what it is, Norm? I think they're just trying to get rid of all my generation...."The boomer ladies that, you know, that inherited their — you know, are widows. They inherited the money so they got to go wherever the money is and figure out a way to get it away from people."

Barr made a number of other unorthodox claims during the interview: She argued that people are "being forced to evolve," urged working women to learn how to make bean soup, claimed that Chinese people eat bats and rats (and that she saw one guy eat a baby), and insisted that "there exists an operative in each town that reports back to Central Intelligence false information to ruin my career."

If you want to read more about this supremely unbalanced lady, Venay Menon has a droll take on her escapades.

Misinformation can be deadly, especially as it pertains to Covid-19. Perennial huckster/televangelist Jim Bakker is facing legal consequences after peddling a snake oil called Liquid Silver Sol he claimed would protect people from the bug. One hopes that the convicted felon pays a heavy price for his dangerous advocacy.

Which brings us back to the question of how to best inoculate ourselves against the virus of hysterical untruths. Readers of this blog will know that I have long been an advocate of critical thinking as the best protective; as I have said many times, it is an ideal toward which I continually strive, well-aware that I often fall short.

Reading widely of legitimate sources is a vital nutrient in this quest, but happily there are some readily accessible sites that make it easier. Snopes, of course, is one of the best. Its recent effort to dispel the myth that eating alkaline foods will confer protection against Covid-19 is an apt illustration of its usefulness.

A search engine can be of great benefit as well. Try putting the term fake news covid-19 into one and look at the results.

There are many, many useful resources on the web which I am confident you can access with little difficulty, and so I leave you with the site suggested by my correspondent Rose. Called Website Planet, it offers some very useful guidance and tools in our collective quest for truth and accuracy.

The Covid-19 virus is naturally dominating all of our concerns today. However, working to flatten the curve on the pandemic of misinformation that existed before and will continue long after the bug is managed will surely serve us well in the bigger picture known as everyday life, life that we will, eventually, return to.

A Weapon Against Fake News

Living in an age when critical-thinking skills are increasingly hard to find, anything acting as a bulwark against the ignorance and stupidity that seems to inform public 'debate' is welcome. Natalie Turvey writes about a weapon that sounds promising.

While misinformation, memes, clickbait and outright lies proliferate across our online feeds, especially in this election season, Canadians are not powerless to fight back.

There’s no question it can be difficult to distinguish between fact-based real news and fake news and those who want to mislead and confuse us are becoming more sophisticated every day.Research shows that:

-90 per cent of Canadians admit to falling for fake news

-Fake news stories spread six times faster than the truth

-Only 33 per cent of Canadians regularly try to confirm if the news we see is real

-40 per cent of Canadians report finding it difficult to distinguish between truth and misinformation in the news

-More than half of respondents (53 per cent) have come across stories recently where they believe facts were twisted to push an agenda

Help in fighting these daunting numbers is now available:

The Canadian Journalism Foundation has launched a campaign called “Doubt it? Check it. Challenge it.” The campaign aims to give Canadians the skills and tools to combat fake news and information. We have built tools and tips to empower people and it all lives on DoubtIt.ca.

Having checked it out, I can attest that the site offers a wealth of resources to determine whether or not 'news' is genuine, some of which are common sense, and others are resources that many may be unaware of. There is even a fake news quiz. (I took it and scored 9/10)

Essentially, Doubtit.ca revolves some simple steps:

[F]irst, if a story doesn’t seem right, trust that instinct; second, check it out, look for other sources to verify; and third, if it is fake news, call it out.

Of the three steps, the first — Doubt it? — may be the most important. More than half of us have come across stories we think are fake. So, our Spidey senses are working. Often, we just need to take a breath before we repost something and ask ourselves “does this feel right?”

If it doesn’t, there are simple ways to “check it.” First, read beyond the headline. In today’s news, headlines don’t always match the content of the story. They can be much more provocative, to attract clicks, than the story that follows.

Next, take a look at what surrounds the story you’re reading. Do the other stories on the site seem far-fetched? Are they satirical, or all about conspiracies? If so, you’ve found your answer.

And finally, if you doubt a story’s claims, do a simple online search to see if anyone else is reporting it. If it’s true, those claims will be covered by other, reputable news sources. The same goes for images. You can search those online too, and you’ll quickly learn whether the image in that meme is real or fake.

The final responsibility we have, if we are at all active on social media, is to identify fake news when we find it. I have done that many times on Facebook (but I always like to frame it tactfully so as not to offend the poster).

As we enter the crunch point for our election, detecting and exposing fake news is paramount to the health of our democracy. If we remain silent, we give consent to lies, distortions and malicious manipulation. That is something none of us could ever be proud of.

An Update To A Marriage Made In Hell

It is good to know that the mainstream media is finally paying attention to the new technology that I outlined in yesterday's post. And it seems that DARPA, a secretive Department of Defense agency, is building new software and artificial intelligence that will scan images to check for alterations in an effort to fight against fabricated news.

A Marriage Made In Hell

Now this is really disturbing.

The Verge reports that Jordan Peele and Buzzfeed combined forces to make a fake Public Service Ad:

Using some of the latest AI techniques, Peele ventriloquizes Barack Obama, having him voice his opinion on Black Panther (“Killmonger was right”) and call President Donald Trump “a total and complete dipshit.”

The video was made by Peele’s production company using a combination of old and new technology: Adobe After Effects and the AI face-swapping tool FakeApp. The latter is the most prominent example of how AI can facilitate the creation of photorealistic fake videos.

Researchers have developed tools that let you perform face swaps like the one above in real time; Adobe is creating a “Photoshop for audio” that lets you edit dialogue as easily as a photo; and a Canadian startup named Lyrebird offers a service that lets you fake someone else’s voice with just a few minutes of audio. Technologist Aviv Ovadya summed up the fears created by this tech, asking BuzzFeed News, “What happens when anyone can make it appear as if anything has happened, regardless of whether or not it did?”

The implications of this technology are frightening. Consider, for example, that propagandists will now have a powerful new tool with which to virally undermine their targets with embarrassing or compromising 'videos'; moreover, those who are caught in all manner of malfeasance will, as the current president of the U.S. regularly does, be able to claim it is all "fake news."

Scientists are currently creating tools that can spot AI fakes, but at the moment, the best shield against this sort of misinformation is instilling everyone with a little more media savvy. If you see a provocative video, you should ask yourself: where does this come from? Have other outlets corroborated it? Does it even look real? In the case of AI-generated videos, you can usually see that they’re fake by telltale signs of distortion and blurring.

As always, critical thinking will be paramount. However, how many, no matter how fair and balanced they consider themselves to be, will be able to resist the natural urge to believe the worst about those whose views and practices are so diametrically opposed to their own?

Artificial Intelligence meets fake news: surely a marriage made in Hell.

Time To Be Atwitter?

I couldn't help but think of this story concerning trolls spreading fake news about Black Panther-related violence when I saw this:



Do I detect a pattern developing?

In Praise Of Critical Thinking

Here are five resources that can aid us in what really is a life-long journey:

A Stellar Analysis: Kellyanne Conway's Interview Tricks, Explained

Vox offers this deconstruction of the slippery and morally repugnant Kellyanne Conway.

How To Think, Not What To Think

I have been retired from teaching for 10 years now, and I can say that since departing, I have not missed the classroom for a single day. I say this despite the fact that every few weeks I dream about being back on the job, usually with about two weeks before final exams, and there is something critical that I have failed to teach. In the dream I excoriate myself for having failed my students, and myself, in a crucial way.

I'm not sure why that dream and its regular permutations haunt me so long into retirement, since I know I did the job to the best of my ability throughout my career. But there is always that sense that there was something left undone, perhaps a fitting metaphor for what education really is, a life-long process we all have a moral responsibility to pursue, whether through courses, reading independently, or engaging deeply in issues of import.

Probably the greatest unfinished goal, a perpetual work in progress, is the journey toward critical thinking, about which I have written many times on this blog. Without that capacity, people are not only enslaved to their emotions, biases and prejudices, but also vulnerable to the crass manipulation of those around them, including the media and their political 'leaders'. Never has it been more important to strive to be an independent, critical parser of the world around us.

The other day I happened upon an interesting article by an educator and consultant, Catherine Little, discussing this invaluable skill within the context of the classroom:

Critical thinking might be defined as the process of analyzing and evaluating an issue in order to form a judgment. It is much more difficult to do than define and even harder to teach. However, it is an essential skill and necessary for citizens to effectively exercise their rights and responsibilities.

Teaching students to think critically often results in lively debate as they come to realize people think differently. Teachers must model how to disagree productively and empower students to defend their beliefs passionately but respectfully while working toward change.

By focusing on big ideas and skills, teachers empower students to use what they learn beyond school.

I might quibble at this point and suggest that teachers do not so much teach critical thinking as they do provide the knowledge and the environment within which critical thinking can arise. For example, when I used to teach The Grapes of Wrath, a fine classic about the consequences of the dustbowl in the thirties, I would often ask how John Steinbeck manipulates our sympathies toward the dispossessed Okies and against the landowners, and thereby have them realize that all novels, no matter how noble, are subversive in their intent. We would also do simulations whereby a large camp of dispossessed had suddenly set up in their community, and explore how the community would deal with it from the perspective of a real estate brokerage, local store owners, the ministry, PTA, school board, etc. Each role required thought and deliberation, preconditions to any attempt at critical thinking.

Ms. Little's experience was not dissimilar:

As a student, I experienced a masterful example of teaching for critical thinking when I studied the two World Wars in a high school history class. My teacher planned her lessons to enable us to respond to this final exam question: “It has been said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Discuss using examples from this course.”

Her approach forced us to analyze and evaluate the events we had studied in order to form a judgment about the effects power might have on any leader — a skill that has come in handy on many occasions.

Clearly, these are not skills that have a place only in the classroom:

Recently, I wondered how the leader of a revolution to overthrow a dictator might come to be regarded as a dictator himself? I have also been contemplating how the effects of power might be influencing our own government’s attitude toward electoral reform and cash — for — access fundraisers.

When in third place, The Liberal Party campaigned on the need for electoral reform and promised that if elected, 2015 would be the last under the first-past-the-post voting system. After they were elected to a majority government under this system, they seemed to backtrack. Might a party’s preference for an electoral system be influenced by how much power it has?

When taking power, Prime Minister Trudeau promised his party would “ … uphold the highest standards of integrity and impartiality both in our public and private affairs.” Might being in power affect how a government defines integrity and impartiality?

She ends her essay, as I will this post, reflecting on the relevance and crucial role critical thinking must play today:

Thankfully, my teachers believed in the importance of critical thinking and were able to find ways to use their subject matter to encourage it by asking big questions and teaching students the skills that enabled them to think about those questions critically. By doing this, they made sure I had the skills to question the words and actions of any leader — no matter how popular — and act accordingly.

It seems to me that in this “fake news” and “post-truth” age, the need to teach critical thinking is only growing in urgency.

More Weapons In The War Against Fake News

If you get the bulk of your news from television and print journalism, you may be unaware of the extent to which fake news has taken hold in the virtual world. If you are in that category, here is a link to the stories I have posted revolving around the issue. Or just do a quick Google search. The fact that such fiction has deep traction should worry us all.

Given the suspicion that fake news may very well have been a contributing factor in the recent U.S. election results, especially the prominent role that Facebook seems to have played, the world is now beginning to take this threat seriously and devising ways to ferret out the mendacious from the true. And Facebook will play a leading role:

The social network is going to partner with the Poynter International Fact-Checking Network, which includes groups such as Snopes, to evaluate articles flagged by Facebook users.

If those articles don’t pass the smell test for the fact-checkers, Facebook will pass on that evaluation with a little label whenever they are posted or shared, along with a link to the organization that debunked the story.

While it will not end the scourge of fake news, once the domain of tabloids like The National Enquirer, it will undoubtedly put a dent in it:

The new system will work like this: if there’s a story out there that is patently false — saying that a celebrity is dead when they aren’t, for example — then users will see a notice saying that the story has been disputed or debunked. People who try and share stories that have been found false will also see an alert before they post. Flagged stories will also appear lower in the news feed than unflagged stories.

Users will also be able to report potentially false stories to Facebook, or send messages to the person posting a questionable article directly.

And if that isn't enough, there are other means at our personal disposal through browser plug-ins and extensions, one of which, the B.S. Detector, I previously wrote about. There are others as well:

Slate unfurled This Is Fake, which combines crowdsourcing and editorial curation to identify articles in Facebook feeds that spread misinformation and flag them as false.

An open source project, the FiB Chrome Extension, combs through a user’s Facebook news feed to verify status updates, images and links through image recognition, keyword extraction, source verification and a Twitter search. An artificial intelligence assessment of facts results in a verdict tagged as “Verified” or “Not Verified.” If the story is deemed false, the AI will search for a verified source on the same topic.

Another one is Media Bias/Fact Check. The Daily Dot offers this description:

While Media Bias/Fact Check doesn’t scan your Facebook, it will help you when you end up on a site with questionable news. Or any other type of news. The app works by scraping data from Media Bias Fact Check, a wonderful site that checks for bias across all ideological spectrums.

When you land on a news page and press the MB/FC icon in Chrome, the extension will tell you exactly what kind of bias you can expect from your source. Left, right, center, or somewhere in space, MB/FC will tell you who is lying and when.

As I have said before, ultimately nothing serves to replace skilled critical thinking in assessing what we read and hear. But given the scope of fake news today and its increasingly harmful impact, every development that helps to hem in such deceit is indeed welcome.

More On Fake News

I was tempted to conflate the first two words of my title to drive home a point, but I resisted.



Meanwhile, Star readers weigh in on that shameful Canadian, Stephanie MacWilliams, who played a key role in the 'pizzagate' fake news story that almost ended in tragedy:

Belleville woman played role in delivering ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy, Dec. 8

Would-be journalist/detective Stefanie MacWilliams shows no remorse and is, in fact, very proud of the part she played in the Pizzagate fake news fiasco, which resulted in a heavily armed nutbar clearing a restaurant of all clients and workforce.

Would she be so jubilant if this guy had encountered resistance, and slaughtered any number of innocent people, including the children attending a birthday party on the premises?

MacWilliams is obviously naive, ill informed, and extremely dangerous. Rather than be a “make believe” journalist, she should consider some professional training. Real journalists rely only on facts. People who believe, and then propagate these ridiculous conspiracy theories exhibit a serious mental deficiency.

David Moore, Annan

Creating or purveying fake news is a lucrative business with few costs and is easy to get into. Why work a regular job when you can, in the comfort of home, post fake news and see your bank account get fat quickly?

I see another lucrative business emerging—helping victims of fake news to sue the perpetrators for huge sums of money.

These are the opportunities in the Internet economy.

Salmon Lee, Mississauga

Stefanie MacWilliams has echoed and amplified fake news with a result similar to that of falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. Do we not put people before the courts for these actions? We should.

Peter Pinch, Toronto

Fake News

While the following is hardly an in-depth report, the interview with the fake-news writer near the end of the report is rather interesting in that it sheds light on the mercenary motives behind such shameful work:

Toward A New Clarity Of Language

With conventional media fighting an ever-growing juggernaut of fake news, news that is either outright lie or gross distortion, two national journals have joined a growing chorus in refusing to use the euphemism alt-right: The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail.

After much discussion and input, Kathy English, The Star's Public Editor, reports the following:

... several senior Star editors met to discuss this issue. In order to seek some measure of consistency, we decided to consult further with our main wire services – The Canadian Press and the U.S. based Associated Press.

This week, both services issued “style notes” on how to refer to the self-labeled alt-right....

The main points to guide Star journalists in writing and editing:

Avoid using alt-right generically.
“We should strive to be accurate and precise, and at least for now, the term ‘alt-right.’ is neither. Terms like ‘white nationalist’ or ‘white supremacist’ are known, accurate and much clearer to readers.”

If you use the term alt-right, define it.
“Phrasing like ‘the ‘alt-right,’ a white nationalist movement’ is appropriate.”

... the Associated Press provided a clear definition of the alt-right, telling us that it’s a name embraced by “some white supremacists and white nationalists to refer to themselves and their ideology, which emphasizes preserving and protecting the white race in the United States.”

And, it adds, “the movement criticizes ‘multiculturalism’ and more rights for non-whites, women, Jews, Muslims, gays, immigrants and other minorities. Its members reject the American democratic ideal that all should have equality under the law regardless of creed, gender, ethnic origin or race.”

With all that’s at stake here, journalists must not rely on euphemistic words that gloss over racism and hate. As the AP rightly tells us, be specific and call it straight: “We should not limit ourselves to letting such groups define themselves, and instead should report their actions, associations, history and positions to reveal their actual beliefs and philosophy, as well as how others see them.”

Language matters. It is our job as journalists to provide readers with accurate, clear and precise words that tell it like it is, not veil reality. We should not serve as unquestioning heralds for those who espouse ideology abhorrent to universal values of equality.

To be clear: the so-called alt-right stands for white supremacy. By any definition, that is racism.

In an abbreviated form, The Globe's Sylvia Stead says essentially the same thing.

While I regularly consult a number of alternative news sites, all of which enjoy sterling reputations, it would be foolish to suggest that the days of mainstream media are over. Now, more than ever, journalists toiling in conventional media may be our last highly visible bulwark against a rising tide of darkness, division, and devolution.

An Easy-To-Use Weapon Against Fake News

People of a certain 'vintage' will well remember the above commercial, in which a family appears to take great delight in fooling dad about the spread he is using. All in all, a humorous and harmless deception, one with no lasting consequences. Today, however, we face challenges to truth that the people of that commercial's era could never have imagined, challenges that are not the least bit amusing: the proliferation of fake news, aided and abetted by the ubiquitous Internet.

What defences do we have against such manipulations? Actually, there are many, only one of which I shall address in today's post.

We live in a very rushed world, one in which people often do not take the time to properly assess the information they access. Now, thanks to an exciting software innovation, that task has been made easier. Daniel Sieradski has created a browser plug-in that, with an extensive data base, flashes a warning at the top of one's screen alerting users to the questionable provenance of any given site. Interviewed on CBC's As It Happens, he explained why he created it:

It was in response to Mark Zuckerberg's statement that Facebook couldn't really handle the problem of fake news without a massive effort requiring the development of an algorithm and all these other things. I was able to work out a solution in just about an hour that showed that that was nonsense and that this issue could be easily addressed, if they really wanted to invest their energy in it.

Its principle seems elegantly simple:

Basically, it scans a given web page for the presence of links and then checks the links against a database that has been compiled of fake news sites, satire sites, conspiracy theory sites and so on and then it inserts a warning label adjacent to the link letting the user know that it is not exactly a reliable source of information.

The beauty of this approach is that it censors nothing; it simply issues a warning of unreliable content, and it is then up to the readers as to what they do with that information.


I strongly recommend that readers give it a try. Compatible with the majority of web browsers, I installed it on Chrome, and then tested it by consulting a list of fake news sites. It worked flawlessly on the ones I went to.

If you are interested, here is the link to the software. A further explanation as to its operating basis is supplied there as well:

The list of domains powering the B.S. Detector was somewhat indiscriminately compiled from various sources around the web. We are actively reviewing this dataset, categorizing entries, and removing misidentified domains. We thus cannot guarantee complete accuracy of our data at the moment. You can view the complete list here.

Domain classifications include:

Fake News: Sources that fabricate stories out of whole cloth with the intent of pranking the public.
Satire: Sources that provide humorous commentary on current events in the form of fake news.
Extreme Bias: Sources that traffic in political propaganda and gross distortions of fact.
Conspiracy Theory: Sources that are well-known promoters of kooky conspiracy theories.
Rumor Mill: Sources that traffic in rumors, innuendo, and unverified claims.
State News: Sources in repressive states operating under government sanction.
Junk Science: Sources that promote scientifically dubious claims.
Hate Group: Sources that actively promote racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination.

Incorporating the plug-in is one defence against the increasingly strong assaults on truth and accuracy being mounted by those who seek to impose their distorted and indefensible views on the world. In a future post, I shall discuss the hard work that is also required if this battle is ever to be won.

And Speaking of Our Post-Truth World

Yesterday's post dealt with the challenges real journalism faces in this era of presidential prevarications and attacks on the media.

The following video, via Mother Jones, shows what critical thinkers everywhere have to contend with.



Considering the above, we, as a species, clearly have little to be arrogant about.

Surviving In A Post-Truth World

Reading my morning paper, the Toronto Star, I came across a notice to subscribers that rates are once again increasing. As part of what is frequently referred to as their 'legacy readers," I am not happy about this, but I will continue with my subscription, despite the fact that I have full access to a complete digital version of it and hundreds of other papers through my local library via its Press Display service.

Why? First of all, I much prefer the print version of anything I read, but secondly, and more importantly, it is only through a steady income stream that newspapers can fulfill their traditional roles as safeguards of our democracy.

And lord knows that we need those safeguards, especially given the explosion of fake news sites, some of which may have influenced the U.S. election, not to mention the attacks on traditional media much in evidence these days, instigated, aided and abetted by demagogues like Donald Trump. Consider this:



The above campaign rally brought out this observation from the New York Times:

...even reporters long accustomed to the toxic fervor of Trump rallies were startled — and even frightened — at the vitriol of a Cincinnati crowd on Thursday evening as more than 15,000 supporters flashed homemade signs, flipped middle fingers and lashed out in tirades often laced with profanity as journalists made their way to a crammed, fenced-in island in the center of the floor.

Or how about this scene from another rally?



Last week, veteran journalist Christiane Amanpour was given an award honouring her for her extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom. Her acceptance speech, which you can see here, expressed her concerns over this kind of pillorying, a concern that the CBC's Diana Swain discussed with her:



It would not be wrong to conclude that the mainstream media, through a combination of laziness, obedience to corporate imperatives and frequent abandonment of their sacred responsibilities, deserve criticism. But it would be wrong to conclude that they no longer have a place in informing the public through deep research, factual renditions of stories and fearless resistance to the pressures from unhinged members of the public, opportunistic, manipulative politicos and feckless employers.

I shall continue to do my part in trying to realize the above ideal by paying for the paper I most trust. I leave you with the reflections of a Star letter-writer, who recognizes the challenges facing traditional media today:

Journalist Christiane Amanpour’s address last week to the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York is extremely relevant. The need for the mainstream media to re-commit to an unwavering role in delivering pure facts is more important now than ever.

Some news outlets may have been more committed to delivering facts than others. So it’s up to readers, viewers and listeners to decide where they get their information.

But too many, it seems, have relied over the past year or more on social media. Donald Trump aside, this has been a very dangerous trend. And dwindling ratings/circulation and news coverage budgets have not helped.

The media have always been under attack from one source or other, but never to the degree that we’re seeing now. And it’s not only from Trump. While re-dedicating themselves to ever-higher standards, media will now have to reinvent themselves to deal with what social media is pumping out in the form of fake news (to which Trump has been just one major contributor).

Some social media may also have learned some lessons from this and may have accepted responsibility, as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently acknowledged.

Amanpour asked a very good question off the top. What would Ed Murrow do? Fifty-one years after his death, the iconic CBS newsman is still regarded by a (admittedly-dwindling) number of reporters as a leading light in truthful, gutsy, advocacy journalism. He took on an earlier narcissist sociopath in the 1950s by the name of McCarthy – and won. Joe McCarthy self-destructed within months.

Nobody – doubtless including himself – knows what will happen with a Trump presidency. As we know, he’s already reversed himself on several issues, probably thanks to prevailing wisdom that has eked its way through to the Trump Tower. He may, in fact, moderate his attitude about mainstream media, as well. Who knows?

But the same media are going to have to figure out how to deal with this guy in, one hopes, some constructive way. And Trump will be forever totally unpredictable.

Amanpour’s warnings are critically important at this worrisome time. She has articulated the urgency of the message better than we’ve heard from anyone else to date.

Ian Sutton, Kingston