Former U.S. attorney general and New York Times best-selling author William P. Barr will headline the 2023 annual conference of the California News Publishers Association (CNPA) early next year. The theme of the 2023 Capital Conference (CapCon2023) is “Rebuilding Trust in an Age of Disinformation.” Registration for the two-day event is open at capcon2023.com.
Barr will be joined by other top speakers assembled by CNPA to tackle the question of declining trust in mainstream media and how to reverse it. Opinion polls reveal confidence in newspapers and television news has plummeted to an all-time low. Gallup has reported that just 16% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers.
According to Gallup, the decline in trust is largely driven by political affiliation. Online media also contributes as “the data suggest the public struggles to distinguish fact-based journalism from opinion content online (because) the standards used by traditional media outlets — like fact-checking, bylines, datelines, and corrections — have not been fully adopted by online news commentators on blogs, podcasts and social media.”
Claims of rampant federal election fraud in the race for the presidency in 2020 partially inform Barr’s perspective.
In the forward to his book “One Damned Thing After Another,” Barr recounts a meeting at the White House after he (Barr) told the AP, “We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
The president, voice rising according to Barr, asked, “Why would you say that?”
Barr responded, “Because it is true, Mr. President.”
Barr served as U.S. attorney general twice, once under President George H.W. Bush and then again in the cabinet of President Donald Trump.
“We are delighted to have Attorney General Barr headlining our CapCon2023 program,” said CNPA President and CEO Charles Ford Champion II. “He is noted for his candor, and we are looking forward to hearing his insider’s perspective on watershed moments in our history and on the impact of disinformation on criminal justice, elections and policy making.”
One of only two people to serve two terms as U.S. attorney general, Barr was in the room advising presidents during highly transformational periods of American history. His appearance at CapCon2023 on Feb. 1, 2023, will come just weeks after a new Congress is sworn in following the midterm elections.
CapCon2023 will take place from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 in Sacramento, CA. It is the first time since the pandemic halted meetings that CNPA publishers and editors have met in person. The association used the time to reimagine the annual conference to bring focus to media issues that have both state and national significance.
