Former Attorney General Bill Barr blames a culture of lying on the press.

I joined some 200 members of the California press corps, mostly editors and publishers, for a convention hosted by the California News Publishers Association in Sacramento on Feb. 1-2, designed around the theme “Rebuilding Trust in an Age of Disinformation.” The speaker lineup included First Amendment attorneys, investigative journalists and editors. In a twist, it also included former Attorney General Bill Barr, who served under presidents George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump. It’s a strange twist because in his remarks, Barr was openly contemptuous of the press, and also because Barr helped enable a flow of lies, until he didn’t.

Certainly Barr hopes that his eleventh-hour resignation from the Trump administration – when it became clear Trump would not back down from false claims that he’d won the 2020 election, but the democratic machinery of the country wouldn’t let him illegally hold onto the office – might cast him in a positive light. But before the so-called Big Lie about the election, there were countless others, including casting the Mueller report as a complete exoneration of Trump.

Of course, Barr doesn’t see it that way. He was asked: “Do you personally take any responsibility for an increase in the flow of disinformation in the Trump White House?” Barr responded, simply: “No, I don’t.”

There was to be no reckoning, but the talk was an opportunity to hear directly from Barr – also the author of a new book about his life and career, titled One Damn Thing After Another – about his diagnosis for why trust is diminished and how to rebuild trust in an age of disinformation. His suggestion was not that the press should do a better job of parsing lies and fact checking, but should embrace a both-sides-ism – basically, journalists should give an even larger megaphone to liars and conspiracy theorists. (Worth noting: This is exactly what social media platforms have done.)

In Barr’s telling, it’s the media’s fault that we live in an era of disinformation. “It’s precisely because the media has lost its status as a trusted voice in the public square that we are experiencing more and more unchecked mendacity in our public discourse,” he said. “When the cat’s away, the rats will take over.”

There is no doubt that media outlets made serious mistakes in their coverage of the Russian collusion that was or wasn’t, among others. The media does not always get it right, and Barr offered a reminder that trust is earned every day. You botch one story, or fall for a politically motivated source’s analysis of how to tell a story, and you lose trust – and then must begin the hard road as a journalist of regaining it.

How to regain it is something that many speakers at CNPA’s conference had ideas about. Journalist Brian Karem – a long-time White House correspondent (including for Playboy), a CNN analyst and host of the podcast “Just Ask The Question” – spoke about how journalists, at their peril, become elitist in their view of their own mission. “Folks, you’re not here to uncover ‘the truth,’” Karem said. “You are here to uncover and report verifiable, vetted facts.”

Karem offered a powerful reminder that the job of a journalist is to cut through the narratives that any given stakeholder wants out there, to treat every source with skepticism, and then keep on digging. “Don’t be impressed by power,” Karem cautioned. Don’t let politicians frame the argument, don’t let anybody frame the argument, and be unafraid to anger anyone.

On that point, Karem and Barr shared a similar perspective – when the press corps decides there is a hero and a villain, they do so at the peril of facts. Humility goes a long way for any journalist in getting the story right.

But where they differ quite wildly is that Karem, rightly, blames the government for contributing to a demise of facts. In Barr’s telling, it is the media’s fault. Barr also blamed “a militant progressivism” for guiding society and journalists.

Of course journalists must treat all voices – including progressive ones – with an equally critical view. But if history reveals a clear bad guy, that’s a matter of morality, not journalism and not politics.

Perhaps most telling in their clear divergence as to the pursuit of facts: Barr dodged in-person questions after his talk, including from Karem, and left the building.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com.