Davos and Misinformation: because things aren’t always as they are described or appear from afar
Plus a recommending a new substack on misinformation
I don’t know about you, but running helps me think. It clears the mind in a way cycling, whether on the road or trail, does not. I’ve asked other cyclists who run and heard the same from them.1 On Saturday morning’s run – about 6.8mi around the Charles River with a “feels like” down to 5F / -15C – a line in a Politico email I read before going out popped to mind. It was chilly, but as I did my easy run to build base,2 I recalled this line: “When American officials were in this high-society ski town last year…” Wait, what? (To be clear, I’m not claiming that I always have deep or insightful thoughts when running.)
Calling Davos a “high-society ski town” tells me that the writer and editor have never visited Davos outside of the World Economic Forum. It’s not a high-society ski town, which I think is supposed to mean where the really rich people ski, which is one reason the guy behind WEF established it in this otherwise ordinary village. For a high-society ski town, go to St. Moritz, not Davos.3 There is skiing around Davos, Google Klosters or Madrisa, but it’s an everyday ski destination during the winter and a sort of destination for summer hiking and (some) cycling in the fairer months. It is an easy two-hour drive from where we lived near Zürich, and it’s where our kids learned to ski. It’s also where their schools took their annual ski trips. I’ve also cycled there (it’s not worth traveling there to ride, in my opinion) and almost did a triathlon there. A freak September snowstorm froze the lake below the iconic WEF hotel, so the 1+mi swim leg was cut. The road above the WEF hotel to Flëulapass was buried in deep snow. Plows opened a path to the Alpenrose Guesthaus, about six miles up the hill, so the bike leg was reduced from 50km to a 10km time-trial up the 6.6% climb. Anyway, from states-side reporting on Davos, I’ll admit that I had imagined Davos as something like a “high-society ski town.” But, then I went there. It’s a fine place, but if you ask me for places to visit in Switzerland, including “high-society” places, it wouldn’t be on the list I give you. (St. Moritz has more and better skiing, more and better cycling, a better quaint old town with cobblestones, and better shopping.)
With that meaningless bit of trivia and personal information out of the way, if you’re still reading I have a new substack to recommend.
Todd Leventhal worked at the US Information Agency, the State Department, and the Global Engagement Center (which, yes, is still inside the State Department). I first met Todd around eighteen years ago, back in the days of the website USINFO dot STATE dot GOV. This website was the State Department’s way of adhering to the view and then-legal interpretation of the Smith-Mundt Act that flowed from Senators Fulbright and Zorinsky’s amendments to the same (see my post here and my audio version of that post here for more information). You see, internet users outside of the US would be directed to USINFO dot etc, which had content developed for them and the site had links to the State Department’s main website, STATE dot GOV. However, the STATE dot GOV website a person inside the US would go to did not have links to the USINFO site because that was for people outside of the US and thus off-limits, per Smith-Mundt, to people in the US. Some folks wanted to geofence USINFO to make it harder for web surfers in the US to access it for no reason other than since it was content produced for people outside the US, it was, by the common standard used by (too) many academics and pundits, “propaganda.” Sound absurd? It should. But I digress…
Todd had the countering disinformation and correcting misinformation portfolio for USINFO. He was the only person with this explicit responsibility at the State Department. Yes, others, like public affairs officers abroad, officials working with the department’s foreign press center, and others, would correct bad information, but this was a core responsibility for Todd. And, he could only work on it part-time as he juggled other responsibilities. Part. Time. You might think a lot changed after USINFO disappeared, but I think you’d be surprised.
Now Todd has joined the substack world to share his deep experience across a quarter of a century of dealing with misinformation and the US foreign policy bureaucracy, which, professionally, began in 1987 to counter Soviet disinformation. I look forward to reading his substack because things aren’t always as they are described or appear from afar.
As a former triathlete, I wouldn’t ask a triathlete this question because I know that on the bike they’d be too focused on their power meter, maintaining an aero position, and handling a bike built for long straight and empty stretches on roads with debris, unattentive drivers and pedestrians. I didn’t ask runners who cycle because I don’t think I know any.
No, I don’t listen to music on my runs. Yes, I’m training for something. After not running a marathon or longer since 2019 and essentially completely ceased running in 2022 (in favor of cycling), I signed up for three marathons this year.
By the way, if you approach Davos from the northwest, say by car or train from Zürich or Germany, you can stop at Landquart, an outlet mall that is one of the few places not at a train station or airport open for shopping on a Sunday. St. Moritz is about 90min from Davos by car, if you’re planning a trip. [EDIT: Davos is “high-society” from the author’s point of view because of WEF, it’s not the other way around. It’s helpful to know that European, including Swiss, ski pass prices are significantly less expensive than US passes. Plus, there is loads of public transportation that will take you from Zürich’s main train station, for example, directly to lifts. This means you’ll see loads of people wearing their ski boots and lugging their skis on trains and buses.]