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Neal Urwitz Published 4:02 p.m. ET Jan. 22, 2017 | Updated 11 hours ago

President Donald Trumps counselor Kellyanne Conway said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer used alternative facts when he falsely called the crowds at Trumps swearing-in ceremony the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration." Time

In Times Square on Jan. 20, 2017.(Photo: Mary Altaffer, AP)

Since Donald Trump upended everything we thought we knew about politics, hands have been wrung and ink has been spilled about the "post-factual age." How could the candidate with the worstPolitifactrating in the 2016 campaign come out on top? How could fake news causea man to shoot up a pizzeriain a quiet Washington neighborhood?How could the Trump administration claim its new press secretary was using "alternative facts"?

Do facts still matter and if they dont, will real journalism stay relevant? Or is the lamestream media a relic?

We shouldnt overreact. Now that President Trump has taken the oath of office and the business of governance has begun, the impact of fake news and alternative outlets will be revealed as vastly overblown. Traditional media will still control the national conversation. Policymakers will still have to build their days around what the mainstream media reports. The scandals,conflictsand reality checks the mainstream press unearths will dominate the headlines, as they didjust before the inauguration. Those of fake news sites will not.

Lets start with the numbers. Infowars, which received tremendous attention as a haven for conspiracy theories during the campaign, has about 6 millionunique monthly visitors. Breitbarthad roughly19 millionin October2016 when interest in the presidential campaign was peaking.

The USA TODAY NETWORK,on the other hand,hadmore than 122 millionunique visitors in November.CNN's monthly average is about 105 million. The Washington Postand The New York Times, meanwhile, rose to about 100 million apiece just before the election. It is hard to deny that mainstream media outlets reach a huge swath of Americas news consumers.

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Its not just the sheer numbers, though its also who reads which outlets.Politicopolledcongressional staffersand lobbyists on what they read,and the results were no surprise. Among the most read wereThe Wall Street Journal,The Washington Post,The Hill,Roll Calland, of course,Politicoitself. Most congressional offices also read their hometown papers religiously.

People working in Washingtons other policymaking centers like the Department of Defense or the Department of Education read large national publications. They also read outlets that focus on their respective industries, such asDefense NewsandEducation Week, and those mainstream trade publications matter.Education Week,for instance, has 1.1 millionunique monthly visitors, and you can bet the people crafting federal regulatory interpretations take their stories seriously.

As forsites like Infowars, "credible people cannot cite them and remain credible, at least not with policymakers. Former Georgia congressmanJack Kingston, for instance, tweeted a link to an Infowars story.A reporter from themainstream The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionand conservatives from across the countrylambastedhim for it, and Kingston deleted the tweet in an hour. If citing an outlet can shame a former member of Congress, let alone a current one, it is fair to say that outlets impact on the national policy conversation will be limited at best.

Finally, few things control the national conversation like a scandal, but the scandal must have some grounding in fact in order to matter. Fact-based scandals dominated the conversation around the campaign, whether it wasClintons emails orTrumps locker room talk aboard theAccess Hollywoodbus. That is all the more true while a president is in office. Consider how the Clinton administrations legislative agenda groundto a halt during the MonicaLewinsky scandal, or how the George W. Bush Administrations political capital evaporated following the botched response to Hurricane Katrina.

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The scandals unearthed by alternative outlets dont have the same impact. For instance, when Alex Jones reported that Hillary Clinton was a devil worshipper, the Clinton campaign, to put it mildly, did not feel compelled to offer a denial. The next four years will doubtlessly see unreliable news outlets produce hundreds of "scandals," none of which will have much effect on Americas governance.

Yes, people are sharing fake news through Facebook and Twitter. People are increasingly using social media platforms to receive news through a filter bubble, where they will only end up reading the news and opinions they already agree with, regardless of whether those facts are actually true. In the long run, that will bepoisonousto our nation, convincing everyone that their own opinions are infallible and the opposition is at best stupid or at worst evil.

None of that, however, precludes the traditional media from playing a critical role in the governance of the United States. Even in the post-factual age, when fake news proliferates and fringe conspiracies creep into online interactions, the lamestream media will still control the national conversation. Facts still matter.

Neal Urwitz is director of external relations at the Center for a New American Security.

You can readdiverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers ontheOpinion front page,on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our dailyOpinion newsletter.To submit a letter, comment or column, check oursubmission guidelines.

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Don't panic about 'alternative facts': Column - USA TODAY