Today,I write,not from the world beyond our shores,but from theworld desk in sunny Melbourne.
From this perch,I’ve seen some remarkable events unfold. Conflict (,),disasters (the) and tales of survival (the).
Big breaking stories,catastrophes,wars,emergencies,they tell themselves. A blunt event occurs,and it’s reported out fully,from all the angles.
But other stories that occur seem to never be fully told. They play out between the lines.
That can happen when the reality presented in the news diverges,sometimes gradually and sometimes wildly,from what’s visible on social media.
One occasion when social media and reality split was the US presidential election of 2016.
That’s when Donald Trump was elected president on the back of a chaotic surge of social media interference linked to Russia on the internet.
At the time,Americans and people in democracies everywhere,heard incessantly about emails,the,violent immigrants,US decline,even.
Masses of anonymous trolls co-ordinated to pile on Trump’s Republican rivals,while sowing chaos for Democrats.
Why care about in 2016? The year kick-started the surge of illiberal politics in democracies (not just Trump,but Brexit,and the rise of the European far-right). At the same time,it exposed the peril of disinformation.
In short,the election sparked the crisis in democracy that has defined recent years.
Now,authoritarian regimes,often by subversive means,seek to reshape the international order.
After Trump’s victory,I wondered who might have actually seen Russia’s meddling as it happened.
So I found those people and got their stories. These people are the subject of a six-part narrative podcast called,written and voiced by me,which launches this week.
Meanwhile,the crisis which kicked off in 2016,seems to be expanding,growing wings.
This year there is another do-or-die US presidential election. And Trump,who faces a string of legal cases after his reluctant exit from the White House in 2021,is running again.
Russia has even emerged as a factor in the presidential campaign again,with US funding for Ukraine’s wartime defence hanging in the balance.
Moscow’s bloody invasion of Ukraine has dragged into the third year.
So while people ask,or maybe gasp,how did we get here? There is no single answer.
Historians,journalists,and editors will debate the driver of the causes.
But few can deny that the events of 2016 marked an inflection point,and it put us on a path to this world where everything changed.
You can listen toDark Shining Moment here,on or.
Get a note directly from our foreigncorrespondentson what’s making headlines around the world..