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Oxford Dictionaries has declared "post-truth" as its 2016 international word of the year, reflecting what it called a "highly-charged" political 12 months. It is defined as an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals. Its selection follows June's Brexit vote [in the UK], and the US presidential election. Post-truth, which has become associated with the phrase "post-truth politics", was chosen ahead of other political terms, including "Brexiteer" and "alt-right".
[...] Oxford Dictionaries says post-truth is thought to have been first used in 1992. However, it says the frequency of its usage increased by 2,000% in 2016 compared with last year.
Mr Grathwohl said: "Fuelled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time," he said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37995600
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016
Would you have chosen something different?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:32PM
Right. Go back to your alt-right "truthiness" sites.
False dichotomy.
And I haven't seen too much lying
How do you define "lying"? Does lying by omission count? Does mindlessly repeating the words of government officials even when there is no evidence that what they said is actually true count? Because much of that happened after the Snowden leaks, where much (not all) of the largest media outlets began vigorously defending the NSA, slandering Snowden, and not being critical of government officials at all. Then there are the "experts" they often bring on who aren't necessarily experts at all; oftentimes they will simply bring on someone who superficially appears to be an expert without investigating them deeply. The media is mostly pathetic, especially when it comes to partisanship (many outlets are insanely defensive of one party or another overall), challenging the national security state, and so on. None of this has anything to do with the alt-right, the right, or the left.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:47PM
Does lying by omission count?
Not volunteering answers is not the same as lying. It's even in the constitution - the 5th Amendment - the right not to self-incriminate. Not answering police questions by keeping quiet, is NOT lying.
Does mindlessly repeating the words of government officials even when there is no evidence that what they said is actually true count?
That's what you have multiple news sources for, and primary sources. You no longer have to believe *everything* that some official says. On the other hand, it does not mean that most of the things they say is propaganda either.
Because much of that happened after the Snowden leaks, where much (not all) of the largest media outlets began vigorously defending the NSA, slandering Snowden, and not being critical of government officials at all.
Right. Washington Post? New York Times? and let's not forget about UK's Guardian that was publishing these revelations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/as-a-source--and-a-patriot--edward-snowden-deserves-a-presidential-pardon/2016/09/19/dcb3e3f6-7e9c-11e6-8d0c-fb6c00c90481_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/opinion/pardon-edward-snowden.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
So not sure what your largest media is now, but if your only source is Fox News, then well, who's fault is that? Or maybe Americans don't actually read anymore?
The only major liar was Donald Trump, and when someone listed all the fake shit he talked about, his "wise supporters" would trump out how it was all media fake news!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @08:02PM
Not volunteering answers is not the same as lying.
Maybe, but if your stated goal is to inform people, then intentionally misleading people by leaving out information is an unethical thing to do.
That's what you have multiple news sources for, and primary sources. You no longer have to believe *everything* that some official says. On the other hand, it does not mean that most of the things they say is propaganda either.
Yes, looking at multiple news sources is a good idea, but that doesn't exactly absolve the outlets which fail to investigate properly and end up misleading people.
Right. Washington Post? New York Times? and let's not forget about UK's Guardian that was publishing these revelations.
Did you miss where I said "not all"? And even within those news outlets, there were many writers willing to lie about the NSA's activities and spout propaganda, including about how the surveillance stopped terrorism (repeating lies by government officials mindlessly, and also a distraction since it's irrelevant to the constitutionality of the surveillance) and misleading people about the reasons Edward Snowden fled to Russia.
You can never say that all of the media lies (or at least misleads or reports incorrectly) all of the time, but there is a serious problem.
The only major liar was Donald Trump, and when someone listed all the fake shit he talked about, his "wise supporters" would trump out how it was all media fake news!!
Trump is definitely a liar, and sadly you don't need facts to persuade people or to get them riled up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @08:19PM
Did you miss where I said "not all"? And even within those news outlets, there were many writers willing to lie about the NSA's activities and spout propaganda, including about how the surveillance stopped terrorism
You wrote much, which means most. And during Snowden it was not most, it was a minority that defended NSA. But what do you expect journalists to do? They reported, and waited, just like Snowden, and *NOTHING*. That was kind of reminiscent of the older leak,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A [wikipedia.org]
so what did you or journalists expect? Clearly, today's American doesn't give a crap about privacy or government intrusion into their activities.