On the Balance of Probabilities

You can't trust the veracity of any information issuing from the white house and the way it is going no one will be able to tell truth from fiction pretty soon. People will have to read everything, especially in the blogs and social media, and weigh up the balance of probabilities to come to a conclusion about where the truth lies. Who has time for that?

The background to all this is the press conference given by Trump's press secretary in the wake of the inauguration. Each sentence was a demonstrable lie.  The journalists sat there, swallowed these  lies without any enquiry or analysis, and regurgitated them intact back out into the mainstream media. Even the ABC just showed the guy standing there describing a post-truth fantasy reality with a straight face, in a monotone. Even though this body language sets the alarm bells ringing, I didn't know for certain the statements were suspect until I checked out twitter. I still don't know the exact reality.

It all comes down to the inauguration. Was there the biggest crowd in history as Trump would have us believe or was there a meagre turnout bolstered by hire-a-crowd extras bussed in and paid for with Trump's obscene wealth? No doubt the truth falls somewhere between these two extremes but the balance-of-probabilities method becomes inapplicable in a hyper-polarised political environment as has now developed.

Journalism was once the guardian of truth. Journalists need to step up and do their jobs better. The media scrum facing this Trumpic fantasy needed to grill the guy to expose the lies. Now that would be entertaining. Imagine the response if he were confronted with an alternative version. Would he sweat? Would he dissemble? Would he disappear in a puff of post-truth smoke?

I've never actually looked at the Nazi propaganda of Joseph Goebbels but I suspect there would be striking similarities to this stuff. Basically it all comes down to the fact that, if you scream a lie loudly enough and often enough, it becomes the truth. It's all getting so Orwellian. We will need Trump-speak translators installed in all our devices.

Here is an analysis by a former Presidential press secretary:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2wCbaBXAAApIyq.jpg:large   

An example of the sort of ridicule floating around 

Sean Spicer releases new photo showing true size of crowd for Trump's inauguration



and some serious analysis from a news source of high reputation.

Jeffrey Goldberg ‏@JeffreyGoldberg  19h19 hours ago

.@fordm deconstructs Sean Spicer's false claims (via @TheAtlantic):

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/inauguration-crowd-size/514058/

There is still no way to judge the balance of probability. Trump is an extremist. His behaviour mirrors that of a spoilt child. The alternative view may be equally extreme. How are we to judge which is more probable? The contrasting images above purporting to be of the Obama inauguration of 2008 on the right and Trump's on the left have been portrayed as simply one image before it started and another when it was in full swing. who are we to believe?

One tool of the propagandist is the creation of doubt in the minds of the target, so this portrayal is suspect especially because the source then proceeded to criticise the media as not to be trusted. For me past performance and reputation are the key to balancing the probability. The Atlantic has been around a long time and built up an extremely high reputation for truth and integrity. On the balance of probabilities I'll go with them