By Selwyn Duke

Before the advent of the Gutenberg printing press in 1450, word of mouth was the main method for transmitting information. Perhaps this is why a proverbial “wise man” might have been so valued: In a largely illiterate world of rare handwritten manuscripts, he was the closest thing you had to a library, a self-help book, or an instruction manual. A visit to him was the ancient and medieval form of Googling. And you certainly had to hope he, the local holy men, and other counselors were wise — and honest. They were your only conduit of information.

The amount of information available has exploded in modern times, but the scale hasn’t changed the fact that we still must rely on conduits of information. And even in the Internet age, the main one is the media.

How do you learn of a war in a faraway land, a policy proposal in D.C., a political scandal, or university study? Sure, a soldier, political aide, or graduate student could post a note on a blog, but it would likely become a needle in the haystack of the hundreds of millions of blogs worldwide. The reality is that we rely on the media. And if knowledge is power, the media is that pen mightier than militaries. It also follows, then, that misinformation is the power to destroy.

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