CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan (above) in Washington.
It's one of the underpinnings of democracy: Informed citizens make better voters and better decisions. If you're wrong, all it takes is the facts and you change your mind. That's the popular belief, anyway.
The problem, as we've been hearing, is that's not always the case, especially when it comes to very partisan issues. Have the facts ever convinced you to change your mind? How did it happen? Call and tell us your story. Email is talk@npr.org. The phone number, 800-989-8255. You can also join the conversation on our website. Thats at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
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CONAN: This is a phenomenon described as backfire. You say it's a natural defense mechanism to avoid cognitive dissonance.
Mr. NYHAN: That's right. You know, it's hard, it's threatening to us to admit that things we believe are wrong. And all of us, liberals and conservatives, you know, have some beliefs that aren't true, and when we find that out, you know, it's threatening to our beliefs and ourselves.
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CONAN: And you define sophistication, as I read your piece, you define it as somebody who is right a lot of the time, but the 10 percent of the time they're wrong, boy, they stick to being wrong.
Mr. NYHAN: That's right. That's right. And, you know, I should note that this isn't just a matter of how you interpret information. It's the information you seek out in the first place.
CONAN: And Dana, that's even perhaps more relevant in a world where we don't have to read any general-issue newspaper if we don't want to. We can find places where we can go to find people who agree with us.
Mr. MILBANK: I think that's exactly what's happening, and that's what's reinforcing this sort of a psychological predisposition that Brendan's talking about, and that is if you only get your information from, say, Fox News, or you only get your information from the Huffington Post, well, what they're telling you may be accurate, but they may leave out things that might sort of weigh in on the other side of the issue.
So then if you do stumble across something that undermines everything that you've been hearing, well, you get confused, you get angry, and, you know, a lot of the letter-writers in response to this particular story were saying I have my facts wrong. Of course, they didn't furnish facts in contradiction of that, although one did say I was full of whale poop, and I wasn't even sure whales made poop, but I didn't want to get into a factual...
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CONAN: And Dana, that suggests that there is a, you know, the shame factor: If you can hold the elites responsible for putting out information that's just, well, flat wrong, maybe they can then tell their supporters I might have missed that one.
Mr. MILBANK: Well, I think it's useful to attempt to do that. I'm kind of doubtful that it actually has any effect. I think what's really happening underneath this is, you know, if you look at surveys all across the board, there's declining trust in all of the institutions, whether that's in government, whether that's in the press, whether that's with church. Whatever it is, Americans dont believe anything, so that gives rise to any old wacky conspiracy theory.
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And when there are efforts to try to rein this in and say, no, let's agree on the facts, things have sprung up like PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times. They just won a Pulitzer Prize for it, and FactCheck, that's through the University of Pennsylvania, they all come out and say no, here are the facts, this is how it is, and objectively, that's how it is. Except the people who have been just told that their facts are wrong by FactCheck are going to go out and attack FactCheck, so there's no way to sort of referee this because it's not actually grounded in fact anymore, and nobody trusts anybody.
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CONAN: Here's an email, this from Patrick in Puyallup in Washington: This topic is so important, I feel points to the heart of so many of today's social problems, why so much doesn't get done in politics. The lack of humility makes it hard to take an honest look at one's own views and opinions, causing people to stick with talking lines they know to be contrary to the facts.
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SHEPARD: Well, I wanted to follow up - I will - but with what Dana said, beliefs versus facts, I think it's the context that they selectively hear. And it's just phenomenal to me how I can have people call about the same story and, yet have heard it so differently. And I think that that plays into something called the hostile media effect...
CONAN: Mm-hmm.
SHEPARD: which is that the more neutral a news story is, the more people are likely to bring their own beliefs and biases and points of view towards that story, and they hear it very selectively.
CONAN: ...truth is something that we can all have an opinion and argue about. Fact, however, we shouldn't altogether disagree about that. Here's a nice email. This is from Scott Nesler(ph). And he quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson. Every fact is related on side to sensation, and on the other to morals. The game of thought is on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other, given the upper to find the underside. He also quotes himself: It's a fact that facts are misused. And Mark Twain: get your facts first and then you can distort them as you please.
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CONAN: Dana Milbank, national political columnist for The Washington Post. Also with us, Brendan Nyhan, a Robert Wood Johnson scholar in health policy research at the University of Michigan, and Alicia Shepard, NPR ombudsman. You're listening TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
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That relatively minor tropical storm, Conson, swept through Manila and killed at least 18, with 57 missing. It is now heading in the general direction of Hainan Island, and could again attain typhoon velocity. Last year about a thousand perished from three typhoons in the Philippines.
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