The only way forward in dealing with polarities and lack of civil debate is for everyone to rise "...above party politics, identify the stakeholders and their hold on the debate, make clear the facts, and talk to each other with respect and a desire for solutions,'' the ABC's Continuous News Editor Tracey Kirkland argues in new book Age of Doubt: Building Trust in a World of Misinformation.

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I am the editor of a national, continuous news channel, and every day my team and I try to facilitate discussions about the major issues of the day in a way that informs, illuminates and educates. Sure, we hear high-pitched accusations of bias, stupidity and incompetence all the time from people on one side of the debate—sometimes both—who don’t like what we discuss, but we don’t let that distract us from the important job at hand. We have a crucial role to play in our democracy, ensuring the voiceless are given a voice, the powerful are held to account, and the facts are elevated above the noisy melee that now constitutes ‘news’.

Likewise, the expectation—of experts, politicians, in fact all of us—should be that we won’t resort to personal attacks in public conversations but will instead debate with rigour, drawing on our expertise and experience. How else can we expect consensus on the major issues of our time? Climate change policy, for example, is being stymied by mudslinging and mis/disinformation. Climate wars have dominated Australian politics over the past decade, even as the country has been burned by massive bushfires a nd t owns were wiped out by the worst floods in a century. Throughout, civil debate has been largely absent and polarisation rife. The only viable way forward, regarding climate change and the myriad other issues impacting us right now, is for us all to rise above party politics, identify the stakeholders and their hold on the debate, make clear the facts, and talk to each other with respect and a desire for solutions.

An additional step would be to consider the creation of citizens’ assemblies, where informed citizens gather to discuss, talk, listen and then advise government, as a way to help strengthen civic debate and democracy. The assembly’s main goal is to learn, then thoroughly debate a chosen issue and present a set of recommendations. There are great examples in Belgium, Canada, Iceland and the United Kingdom. According to AC Grayling: ‘The astonishing thing that comes out of deliberative democracy exercises is that people’s minds do come to be changed and they do come to understand the interests and motivations of other people.’

Could we take this one step further and develop an online citizens’ assembly? It could be a digital space where well prepared citizens could set out their thoughts and enjoy robust debate (read: listen and learn), and where the audience could read and interact with the result. In some ways, it is what X used to be. Could we deliberately and purposely recreate that with the shared goal of strengthening democracy?

Government institutions and media certainly have roles to play in improving civic debate. They need to be transparent and inclusive, honest about their bias and willing to admit mistakes. And they need to listen carefully to all sectors of the public. What is the point of the media exposing greed and corruption, calling the powerful to account, ‘following the money’, if no-one believes them?

‘To harness the power of democracy, we must strengthen its defences,’ says António Guterres. ‘This means investing in a new social contract between government and their people to rebuild trust and social cohesion; bolstering the system of checks and balances; tackling inequalities, combating corruption, prioritising education and expanding opportunities; setting up guardrails in the digital world to protect against its perils while realising its promise; and realising the universality of all human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social.’

We need a civic space, firm ground, a marketplace, where ideas can be aired, shared, and allowed to rub against each other to be tested, without fear of ridicule—like what happened during my walk on that Spanish beach three decades ago. This space needs to be saturated by a minimum level of trust, truth and civility, by basic decency, so that fake news, influencers and misinformation don’t become our accepted norms. The safety in a space like that doesn’t exclude hard discussions and differing opinions, but it does encourage the crucial bubbling up of ideas and innovation. Such a space will help us leave this Age of Doubt behind and embrace a future that, while still complex, nuanced and ever-changing, will also be vibrant, cohesive and democratic.

Right now, a whole lot more debate is needed.

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