For anyone who might yet be in doubt of the regime’s aggressive hostility to truth in general and facts in particular—c’mon, there might still be a handful out there—we’ve had a bit of news that should erase any ambiguity. On a day when the dismantling of the Washington Post dominated the media, a one-two punch was completed when the AP reported the demise of the CIA World Fact Book.
A brief and bland obituary was posted on the CIA’s website. Embedded was the probable explanation for the death. Oh, for the, um, sunset:
One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. The World Factbook served the Intelligence Community and the general public as a longstanding, one-stop basic reference about countries and communities around the globe.
At least, that’s the only explanation I could find since no explicit explanation accompanied the post, nor has anyone from the CIA answered queries from various news outlets. We are left to infer that the need for facts about “countries and communities around the globe” has also sunset in the priorities of America First. The AP article also pointed out that the announcement followed “a vow from Director John Ratcliffe to end programs that don’t advance the agency’s core missions.”
The World Factbook is was a library staple. Like most librarians, it was often where I directed students for a starting place on their research. It was simply organized, efficient, and inexpensive enough to always have the current edition on hand. Plus it became available online, freely accessible to everyone.
David Graham, of The Atlantic, calls this part of the administration’s broad war on information:
This is different from the administration’s assault on truth, in which the president and the White House lie prolifically or deny reality. This is something more fundamental: It’s a series of steps that by design or in effect block access to data, and in doing so erode the concept of a shared frame for all Americans.
This campaign to remove the sources of facts and information is overt and shameless. We see it in the instructions to all Federal agencies and departments to remove from their websites and publications all information considered undesirable to the administration. Less overt, but equally shameless, is the loss of data and information that is no longer generated because the civil servants who worked to provide them are no longer there. I guess they’ve been sunsetted, too.
Since darkness usually follows the sunset, I suppose I shouldn’t torture this metaphor further. There are, after all, other sources of light. Identifying and supporting them is becoming a vital civic duty. We are already losing sources we’ve long taken for granted (see: The Washington Post.) Some may be irreplaceable. At least for a long time. And, it may be a VERY long time before we regain the democratic strength that comes from a shared confidence in commonly shared facts.
In the meantime, we are seeing efforts everywhere to step in and shore up. The West Coast Health Alliance was formed this past September “to provide independent, science-based, and unified public health recommendations.” Substack, just to name one platform, is filled with publications from refugee reporters and medical experts who have sought an independent platform for disseminating factual information. And there are many surviving publications with unwavering journalistic integrity.
We mourn the loss of depositories of facts like The CIA World Factbook and the dependable reportage of facts like The Washington Post once was. But the Post’s epitaph—“Democracy dies in darkness”—can serve to honor their memories. And oddly, I’m hearing Tom Bodett’s voice in my head from the old Motel 6 ad, playing like a promise to those who come after: “We’ll leave the light on for you.”