Hey, I'm Brian Stelter, Relive here in New York, and this is Reliable Sources, where we

examine the story behind the story, and we figure out what's reliable.

This hour Elon Musk, he wants to break up with Twitter, but can he, and if he walks

away, who will stand up to buy the social media giant?

Plus, weeks after the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion, is it still a top story in

key states?

We're going to speak with top editors in Texas and Georgia about that more?

And later, when the news seems so grim, what's the fine line between informing and overwhelming

year?

We're going to talk about that with Melissa Bell, Philip Bump, many more coming up.

But first, how to decipher debates about disinformation?

One of the dominant stories of our time is a dramatic drift toward a choose your own

reality environment.

People are swimming or perhaps drowning in a sea of information, some of it straight

up disinformation, meaning something that's made up on purpose designed to deceive you.

Disinformation is a real thing, a real problem, but it's almost impossible to have a conversation

about it.

This quote from the AP explains why, as trust breaks down, polarization and anxiety increases,

creating opportunities for people pushing their own alternative facts.

So in the case of disinformation, the term, a real thing, that term has been misused,

weaponized, watered down, distorted to the point that, as the New York Times said this

week, disinfo has become yet another untouchable problem in Washington, D.C.

...