The Post's Rosalind S. Helderman explains the questions around the unconfirmed claims Russia has compromising information on Trump. What Lessig worried might happen if huge amounts of information were made public was that people would either intentionally or unintentionally cherry-pick information to suit their political rhetoric. That was why faith in the system would be undercut, he figured, since public information could be cobbled together to make nearly any political point. The broader problem for the media, though, is that many Americans feel as though they can evaluate information as ably as those who've spent decades immersed in the field. At some point, we need to figure out how to solve this problem, how to better teach people to fairly evaluate information that's presented to them and to set aside, as necessary, their partisan inclination to believe the worst about their opponents.

Source: Washington Post January 11, 2017 15:14 UTC