How “Groundtruthing” May Be The Only Solution To The Post-Truth Era

When it becomes hard to know which stories are real, the instinct is to look for a better referee. One interesting solution to this desperate quest for the truth goes the other way entirely: perhaps we need to remove the many intermediaries instead.

The idea is defined by Heather Taylor, director of creative strategy for The Economist, who describes groundtruthing as a preference for “information provided by direct observation as opposed to information provided by inference.”

In other words, perhaps the only solution to the modern “post-truth” assault on reality from all sides is to only believe what you see with your own eyes. It is a bleak conclusion in some ways, because it does not scale. But it does explain why so many people have stopped taking anyone else’s word for anything.