What is the role of higher education in the age of fake news?

Abstract

Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey as the director of the FBI caused a firestorm around the United States, but for the wrong reasons. Rather than see Trump’s actions as another example of the unraveling of a lawless and crooked government, the mainstream press largely focused on the question of whether Trump or Comey are lying, in spite of Trump’s long standing history of producing falsifications and maligning the truth. Even worse, the debate in some quarters has degenerated into the personal issue and question of whose side one is on regarding the testimony. Testifying before a Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey claimed that in meetings with the president, Trump had not only asked him if he wanted to keep his job, but also demanded what amounted to a loyalty pledge from him. Comey saw these interventions as an attempt to develop a patronage relationship with him and viewed them as part of a larger attempt to derail an FBI investigation into National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s links to Russia. What Comey implies but does not state directly is that Trump wanted to turn the FBI into the loyal arm and accomplished agent of corrupt political power.