Earlier this week, I detailed how journalism lost its ability to set the terms of public reality—dismantled not by its own failures, but by algorithmic systems that reward emotional intensity over accuracy and affirmation over verification. Editorial judgment, imperfect yet guided by civic purpose, has been replaced by engagement-optimized algorithms. The result is fragmentation severe enough to undermine shared reality itself—or worse, to convince us objective truth no longer exists.
Arguably the most remarkable aspect of the aftermath of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's assassination is how irrelevant its actual perpetrator was to the immediate discourse. I saw the finger-pointing online even before I saw the news that Kirk had been shot. At that point, there was hardly any information about the incident-let alone details about the shooter or a motive.