[Ads-l] WOTY: "fake news"

[Jonathan Lighter]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/washington-post-march-2009-time-cover-of-trump-is-phony/2017/06/27/9798f28e-5b7d-11e7-aa69-3964a7d55207_story.html?utm_term=.c79ab91a1680

JL

On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 3:48 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> There are quite a few "fake news" references on Chronicling American from
> the early 1900s and late-1800s.  Much of the reporting on the sinking of
> the Maine, for example, was deemed "fake news" - although "yellow
> journalism" is the term that survived.
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Geoff Nunberg <nunbergg at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 11:39:00 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: WOTY: "fake news"
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Geoff Nunberg <nunbergg at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: WOTY: "fake news"
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------------
>
> I=E2=80=99ve found references to =E2=80=9Cfake news=E2=80=9D stories on =
> the Internet going back to the mid-1990s. It spiked in the early Bush =
> years, partly in reference to The Daily Show. In a 2005 editorial, the =
> NYT used  =E2=80=9Ccounterfeit news=E2=80=9D for the press releases and =
> videos that the adminstration had circulated as genuine news stories. =
> That seems a better description of Pizzagate and the
> like=E2=80=94=E2=80=9C=
> fake news=E2=80=9D need not be designed to fool the reader, whereas =
> =E2=80=9Ccounterfeit news=E2=80=9D would have to be.
>
> As for =E2=80=9Cpost-truth,=E2=80=9D Tesich=E2=80=99s piece may be an =
> outlier but the phrase was being applied to the Bush administation by =
> 2004, due in part to Ralph Key=E2=80=99s The Post-Truth Era and Eric =
> Alterman=E2=80=99s When Presidents Lie, which was widely reviewed.  =
> Wikipedia=E2=80=99s entry is for =E2=80=9Cpost-truth politics,=E2=80=9D =
> a phrase that it describes as having been "coined by the blogger David =
> Roberts in a blog post for Grist on 1 April 2010, where it was defined =
> as 'a political culture in which politics (public opinion and media =
> narratives) have become almost entirely disconnected from
> policy.'=E2=80=9D=
>  Inasmuch as Alterman was talking six years earlier about a =
> =E2=80=9Cpost-truth presidency=E2=80=9D and a =E2=80=9Cpost-truth =
> political environment,=E2=80=9D =E2=80=98coined=E2=80=99 seems a =
> stretch.=20
>  =20
> Geoff=20
> >=20
> > Date:    Thu, 8 Dec 2016 13:31:47 -0500
> > From:    Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject: Re: WOTY: "fake news"
> >=20
> > Well, it seems only fair then to regard =E2=80=9Ctruthiness=E2=80=9D =
> as a ripoff of =E2=80=9Cpost-truth=E2=80=9D, which was attested in its =
> current sense in 1992, as the Oxford Dictionaries piece points out:
> >=20
> > *******
> > Post-truth seems to have been first used in this meaning in a 1992 =
> essay by the late Serbian-American playwright Steve Tesich in The Nation =
> magazine. Reflecting on the Iran-Contra scandal and the Persian Gulf =
> War, Tesich lamented that =E2=80=98we, as a free people, have freely =
> decided that we want to live in some post-truth world=E2=80=99. =20
> > *******
> >=20
> > Of course in a post-truth world, none of this really matters=E2=80=A6
> >=20
> > LH
>
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>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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