NatSec@Work - National Security Workforce - September Issue

Leadership Lessons and Highlights

It's 2028 and we're gearing up for election season... What does the media landscape look like? Not pretty. In 2028, the media landscape is even more fragmented and influencer driven. Traditional outlets still matter but social platforms and AI-generated content dominate, leaving voters to navigate a flood of voices where trust is the scarce commodity. Election coverage looks less like a front page or nightly news broadcast and more like a series of competing narratives across platforms. In short, by 2028 the media environment is louder, faster, and harder to trust. The challenge for our free and open society will be to ensure that credible information is not drowned out and that citizens have the tolls and trust to navigate fact from fiction. Why do so many people lack trust in our media? People lack trust in the media because the landscape has changed and incentives have shifted. Today, media is no longer composed of a few trusted gatekeepers like newspapers or newsrooms to a fragmented, always-on ecosystem where anyone with a phone can shape the narrative. It’s the Wild West. And “news” is optimized for clicks outrage and speed rather than accuracy and depth. How much of a challenge is social media to provide fact-based information to Americans? Social media is one of the biggest challenges to providing fact-based information to America! But these platforms were not designed to inform, they were designed to engage. That means algorithms reward content that is emotional, sensational, or polarizing, not necessarily accurate. Fact-based reporting is competing in an unfair fight against clickbait, conspiracy theories and manufactured outrage. We live in an environment where truth struggles to keep up with noise.

Is it too late to turn the clock back on social media? What can we do as a society to de-weaponize social media? I am an optimist. It is never too late, but we can’t simply turn the clock back. Social media is here to stay, and it has fundamentally reshaped how people get information. The answer is not retreating from it, but reshaping the incentives, building standards, transparency and tools that elevate credible content instead of rewarding outrage. The solution isn’t censorship, it’s creating an environment where accuracy and credibility travel as far and as fast as inaccurate and credible information. What are our adversaries doing to exploit our issues with trust in the media? This is the real question… and the issue that keeps me awake at night and the reason I founded the Trust in Media Cooperative. Our adversaries don't have to create divisions; they just have to amplify the ones we already have. They exploit distrust in our information ecosystem and institutions by flooding the space with deepfakes, lies and conspiracy narratives, often recycling content that originates here at home. They don’t need to outfight us militarily; they just need to outmaneuver us in the realm of trust. As I finished pulling together my notes from our discussion, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Ellen’s perspective is one that far more people need to hear. But are they really listening? And are the right people paying attention? That final question also keeps me up at night, and it should you, too. The next war might already be here; we’re just too busy posting vacation photos to recognize it for what it is.