“When it comes to disinformation, 2020 will not be a replay of 2016. It will be far worse.”

So writes Alina Polyakova. (“The Kremlin’s Plot Against Democracy,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2020)

That Russians interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections is not in doubt. Why wouldn’t they attempt the same in the 2020 elections?

This time around, additional forces favor the kinds of disinformation sown by Putin’s Russia. They include pandemic, racial unrest, and climate catastrophes. All provide opportunities beloved by those whose stock in trade are bursts of disinformation, tossed around on the internet for the gullible.

Too many of us substitute tempting social media claptrap for deep reading of reliable news sources. However, investigative news stories cost money. Newspapers have folded across the country, especially the local ones, for lack of support. Readers have fallen away, tempted by lurid headlines put out by dubious sources.

What are our options?

We can take time to actually read researched news: for example, those news sources winning Pulitzer prizes in 2019. They include more than liberal behemoths like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

They include The Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They include the British based Reuters and the Associated Press. Others: ProPublica and The St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Or you might try magazines like The Economist, a weekly British publication.

Resist the lurid rumors and take the time to read and, yes, pay for, our researched news.