""After the Fact is at once frightening, important, and clear-eyed as it deals with the central question of our times: can truth and facts prevail over manipulation and lies?” —David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize–winning associate editor at the Washington Post “A penetrating, disturbing, and highly readable look at the multifaceted war on truth, with some smart suggestions for limiting the casualties.” —Rem Rieder, former USA Today media columnist and former editor of American Journalism Review “Troubling and essential...” —Leonard Pitts, columnist, Miami Herald “Nathan Bomey explains how ‘alternative facts’ and other official fictions and lies came to infect our democracy. More importantly, Bomey offers readers useful tools to remove the post-fact era’s corrosive influence and to restore verifiable, fact-based reality as the basis of our civic debates.” —David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America “American democracy depends on trust. If we cannot meet in the middle, we are doomed to a world of shouting heads on cable and lying memes on the internet. Bomey outlines how we got here and gives the factual blocks for building understanding so we can evolve solutions for the benefit of the Republic. It is a big contribution to an informed debate.” —Alberto Ibarguen, president, John S. & James L. Knight Foundation “Through spot-on reporting and analysis, Bomey makes a convincing case that two of our most cherished institutions—journalism and education—failed us during the 2016 election. This book offers a harrowing account of what went wrong, but Bomey also offers a way out, urging us to help our young people get the skills they need to tell real news from fake and junk science from fact. This book is required reading for anyone interested in keeping our crazy democracy afloat.” —Greg Toppo, USA Today national education writer, and author of The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter “If, like me, you wonder why so much complete nonsense becomes the accepted norm in this data-rich and knowledge-starved world, After the Fact will help lift the veil. An enlightening and intriguing book.” —Chris McGowan, curator emeritus, Department of Paleobiology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and author of Saving Science Class “