Welcome to Sharp Talk, the regular podcast of ESharp Magazine.

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This is Paul Adamson and I'm in conversation with Michael Rich.

Michael is the president and CEO of RAND Corporation.

And full disclosure at the outset,

I'm a member of RAND Europe's council, which Michael chairs. Michael, we're going to talk about

truth decay, a very interesting phrase that you've coined it at RAND. So let's start with the basics.

Define what is truth decay. Well, by truth, we're referring to facts and objective analysis, the results of objective

analysis. And truth decay describes in general a collection of trends that has resulted in the

diminishing role of facts and analysis in public life, at least in the United States.

Okay, and you have a reporter, which has recently been published by Iran.

That's a one that you saw self-commissioned.

You haven't waited for an external client to commission it for you.

That's correct.

That's correct.

We're lucky enough to have several hundred donors, philanthropic,

minded individuals who contribute to Rand each year, and we use the proceeds, some of the proceeds

from the unrestricted donations to underwrite the research and publication of the book.

All right. So let's be clear that. So the core definition of truth decay is much, we're not just talking about fake news, right?

You have different subsets of a definition, so let's go through them briefly one by one.

Yeah, it's much broader than fake news.

There are four trends that we've been tracking that we believe began well over 20 years ago that comprised truth decay.

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