Welcome to 2021

Dear Dispatch readers:

Welcome to a new moment in American politics. 

We have a new administration, new Cabinet members, new agency heads. There’s a new Congress, too. But the country faces many of the same problems: the pandemic, economic uncertainty, growing national debt, security threats—both external and internal.

Among the biggest of these challenges: a polluted information environment, filled with agenda-driven reporting, outrage journalism, partisan boosterism, and—far too often—fake news and conspiracies. It’s harder and harder to separate good information from bad, to know which sources to trust and which ones to ignore, which outlets have hidden agendas and which ones tell it to you straight.