True Enough

I would give this three stars for my own experience of reading it, but because I think the message is so important, and because I think there are a lot of people still blind to this, I tacked on a star for content. The author points out how 'reality' has been hijacked in all kinds of directions and a good deal of what we see and hear (on television, radio, internet) is deceptive - regardless of which side of an issue we agree with. He writes of the "amateurization of expertise", in which people take the views of 'experts' who have done a bit of online research or maybe read a couple of articles, or even just applied their own areas of knowledge to something they're looking in to, but who in fact are not qualified to address the complexities and ramifications of an issue, because those people are easier to understand than people whose training and experience truly qualify them to evaluate the situation. Thus genuine expertise is increasingly devalued and those who do know what they're talking about are discredited.

This book is alarming and depressing, and the author clearly sees no real hope of turning things around. I'm afraid I agree with him, but it can't hurt for us to at least know what's happening.