A hearing tailor-made for the post-truth era

Fact checking and debunking nonsense doesn't work very well, given the structure of social media

Couch-surfing the US Congress’ January 6 hearings has been an interesting experience. These contrast startlingly with the hearings of the post-Apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission of 1996 in South Africa. Their structure is also totally different from the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal (2009), and worlds removed from the war crimes trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II.

I am referring to the structure and presentation of these tectonically important events, not the legal issues. The war crimes trials were formalised courtroom affairs. Bangladesh used a three-judge Bench, and the presentation was chaotic.  Nuremberg had four-member Benches (with alternating judges)