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Truthiness is the quality by which a person purports to know something emotionally or instinctively, without regard to evidence or to what the person might conclude from intellectual examination. Stephen Colbert coined this definition of the word during the first episode (October 17, 2005) of his satirical television program The Colbert Report, as the subject of a segment called "The Wørd."

By using the term as part of his satirical routine, Colbert seeks to critique the tendency to rely upon "truthiness," and its use as an appeal to emotion in contemporary socio-political discourse. He particularly applied it to President Bush's modus operandi in nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and in deciding to invade Iraq.

Colbert unknowingly reinvented the word "truthiness", as it appears in the Oxford English Dictionary, where "truthy," the word it is derived from, is defined as a variation of straightforward truthfulness, and indicated as rare or dialectal. The prior existence of the word was apparently first pointed out by linguist and OED consultant Benjamin Zimmer. Colbert invented its new definition and popularized it among a mainstream audience. "Truthiness" was selected by the American Dialect Society as the 2005 Word of the Year, and by the The New York Times as one of nine words that captured the spirit of 2005. "Truthiness" has also been discussed in the Washington Post, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, the Associated Press, Editor & Publisher, Salon, The Huffington Post, and Chicago Reader, and on ABC's Nightline, CBS's 60 Minutes, and The Oprah Winfrey Show (see below). In January 2006, "truthiness" was featured as a Word of the Week by the website of the Macmillan English Dictionary.

Colbert's "truthiness"

Colbert introduced the word "truthiness" on the premiere episode of The Colbert Report, on October 17, 2005. He came up with the idea of "truthiness" just moments before filming for the show began. He used "truthiness" in a monologue that emphasized its role as an ironic political polemic compressed into a single word, as demonstrated in the following excerpts:

"I will speak to you in plain, simple English. And that brings us to tonight's word: 'truthiness.' Now I'm sure some of the 'word police,' the 'wordanistas' over at Webster's are gonna say, 'hey, that's not a word.' Well, anyone who knows me knows I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. ..."

"I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart. And that's exactly what's pulling our country apart today. 'Cause face it, folks; we are a divided nation. Not between Democrats and Republicans, or conservatives and liberals, or tops and bottoms. No, we are divided between those who think with their head, and those who know with their heart..."

"Consider Harriet Miers. If you 'think' about Harriet Miers, of course her nomination's absurd. But the president didn't say he 'thought' about his selection. He said this:

(video clip of President Bush:) 'I know her heart.'

Notice he didn't say anything about her brain? He didn't have to. He 'feels' the truth about Harriet Miers."

"And what about Iraq? If you 'think' about it, maybe there are a few missing pieces to the rationale for war. But doesn't taking Saddam out 'feel' like the right thing?"

Colbert gave an out-of-character interview with The Onion's A.V. Club, in which he responded to the question, "What's your take on the 'truthiness' imbroglio that's tearing our country apart?" by elaborating on the critique he intended to convey with the word "truthiness":

Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word...

It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the President because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?...

Truthiness is 'What I say is right, and anyone else says could possibly be true.' It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.

CNN and ABC News report on "truthiness"

Six days after Colbert introduced "truthiness," CNN's Reliable Sources featured a discussion of The Colbert Report by host Howard Kurtz, who played a clip of Colbert mentioning truthiness.

On the same day, ABC's Nightline also reported on truthiness, prompting Colbert to respond by saying "You know what was missing from that piece? Me. Stephen Colbert. But I'm not surprised. Nightline's on opposite me..." Nightline host Jake Tapper had in fact made reference to watching The Colbert Report after Monday Night Football, which pushes Nightline away from conflicting with the Report, so that he could watch it without feeling guilty.

The New York Times reports on "truthiness"

In its October 25 issue, eight days after the premiere episode of the Report, The New York Times ran its third article on The Colbert Report, penned by Alessandra Stanley, titled "Bringing Out the Absurdity of the News." The article specifically discussed the segment on "truthiness," although the Times misreported the Wørd as "trustiness." In its November 1 issue, the Times ran a correction clarifying that the Wørd had been "truthiness," not "trustiness." On the next episode of the Report, Colbert took the Times to task for the error, pointing out (with ironic relish) that "trustiness" is "not even a word."

In its December 25 issue, the Times again discussed "truthiness," this time as one of nine words that had captured the year's zeitgeist, in an article titled "2005: In a Word; Truthiness" by Jacques Steinberg. In crediting "truthiness," Steinberg said, "the pundit who probably drew the most attention in 2005 was only playing one on TV: Stephen Colbert."

In the January 22 issue, columnist Frank Rich used the term "truthiness" seven times, with credit to Colbert, in a column titled "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito," to discuss Republican portrayals of several issues (including the Samuel Alito nomination, Katrina response, and Jack Murtha's wartime record). Rich emphasized the extent to which the word "truthiness" had quickly become a cultural fixture, saying, "The mock Comedy Central pundit Stephen Colbert's slinging of the word 'truthiness' caught on instantaneously last year precisely because we live in the age of truthiness." Editor & Publisher magazine reported on Rich's use of "truthiness" in his column, saying he "tackled the growing trend to 'truthiness,' as opposed to truth, in the U.S."

The January 30 issue of the Times included an article titled "How Oprahness Trumped Truthiness" by David Carr, although the article itself did not refer to "truthiness." Because the editors write the headlines in all stories for the Times, the "truthiness" reference must have been added by the editors to describe the theme of Carr's article.

"Truthiness": the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year

On January 6, 2006, the American Dialect Society announced that truthiness was selected as its 2005 Word of the Year. The Society described its rationale as follows:

"In its 16th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted truthiness as the word of the year. First heard on The Colbert Report, a satirical mock news show on the Comedy Channel , truthiness refers to the quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. As Stephen Colbert put it, 'I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart.'"

Apparently after realizing that "truthiness" was found in the Oxford English Dictionary, the Society later changed the wording of this press release on their website, from "First heard on The Colbert Report..." to "Recently popularized on The Colbert Report..."

Snubbed by the Associated Press, and Colbert's response

The Associated Press reported on the American Dialect Society's selection of truthiness as the Word of the Year, including the following comments by one of the voting linguists:

"Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, said "truthiness" means 'truthy, not facty.' 'The national argument right now is, one, who's got the truth and, two, who's got the facts,' he said. 'Until we can manage to get the two of them back together again, we're not going make much progress.'"

On each of the first four episodes of the Report after the selection of truthiness as Word of the Year, Colbert lamented that news reports neglected to acknowledge him as the source of the word. On the first of these episodes, he added Michael Adams to his "On Notice" board, and Associated Press reporter Heather Clark, the author of the article, to his "Dead to Me" board. On the third of these episodes, he ranked the AP at the top of the "Threat-Down," one of few entries ever to gain the number one spot in place of bears. On the following episode he called Michael Adams and asked for an apology. Though Michael Adams never apologized, Colbert "accepted" his "apology," and took him "off notice." Adams also pointed out that "truthiness" is in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Associated Press responds to Colbert

On January 13, the first day after the four-day run of abuse of the AP on the Report, the AP ran a story about The Colbert Report being upset about being snubbed by the AP, in an article titled "Colbert: AP the biggest threat to America." As he has in the past, Colbert remained in character in an interview for the story, and used it to further the political satire of "truthiness;" excerpts of the story are:

"...When an AP story about the designation sent coast to coast failed to mention Colbert, he began a tongue-in-cheek crusade, not unlike the kind his muse Bill O'Reilly might lead in all seriousness."

"'It's a sin of omission...' Stephen Colbert told the AP on Thursday....'It's like Shakespeare still being alive and not asking him what "Hamlet" is about,' he said."

"The Oxford English Dictionary has a definition for 'truthy' dating back to the 1800s....'The fact that they looked it up in a book just shows that they don't get the idea of truthiness at all,' Stephen Colbert said Thursday. 'You don't look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.'"

"Though slight, the difference of Colbert's definition and the OED's is essential. It's not your typical truth, but, as The New York Times wrote, 'a summation of what (Colbert) sees as the guiding ethos of the loudest commentators on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.'"

"Colbert, who referred on his program to the AP omission as a 'journalistic travesty,' said Thursday that it was similar to the much-criticized weapons of mass destruction reporting leading up to the Iraq War. 'Except,' he said, 'people got hurt this time.'"

On January 14, Clark herself responded in an article titled "Exclusive 'News' - I'm dead to Stephen Colbert." She furthered the rise of "truthiness" in published English in conceding, "Truthiness be told, I never had seen The Colbert Report until my name graced its 'Dead to Me' board this week....But I will say that I watched Colbert's show for the first time...It was funny. And that's not just truthy. That's a fact."

Truthiness and the James Frey controversy

The Chicago Tribune published an editorial in its January 16, 2006 issue titled "The Truthiness Hurts," crediting the rise of "truthiness" as serendipitously providing an apt description of the Oprah Book Club controversy over James Frey's semi-fictional memoir A Million Little Pieces. "Truthiness" was also used to describe the Frey controversy by USA Today in its January 15, 2006 issue, by several other publications including the The New York Times and by the television news program Nightline on its October 23 and January 26 editions.

Oprah Winfrey also discussed "truthiness" with Frank Rich on her show, in reference to the Frey controversy and the column "Truthiness 101" Rich had recently published in the New York Times. They also mentioned Colbert's role in popularizing "truthiness."

On January 27, MSNBC ran a commentary titled "Oprah strikes a blow for truthiness: Do facts really matter? Ask Winfrey, James Frey or Stephen Colbert," making the case that Winfrey's about-face on Frey's book was a "small (and belated) but bold nudge back out of the proud halls of truthiness," but also opportunistic and too little too late.

Additional attention to "truthiness"

On January 5, 2006, one day before its announcement as the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year, etymology professor Anatoly Liberman began an hour-long program on public radio by discussing "truthiness" and predicting that it would be included in dictionaries in the next year or two. His prediction seemed to be on track when the website of the Macmillan English Dictionary featured "truthiness" as its Word of the Week at the end of January.

Intellectual property attorney Marty Schwimmer has suggested that Colbert may be able to claim rights to the word "truthiness" as a trademark or under a right of publicity.

The February 13, 2006, issue of Newsweek magazine featured an article on The Colbert Report titled "The Truthiness Teller." It recounted the career of the word "truthiness" since its popularization by Colbert as described above.

On January 31, Arianna Huffington used "truthiness" on the Huffington Post. Huffington later appeared as a guest on the March 1, 2006, episode of The Colbert Report. She challenged Colbert on his claim that he had invented the word "truthiness." During the interview, Colbert declared, "I'm not a truthiness fanatic; I'm truthiness's father." Huffington corrected him, citing Misplaced Pages, that he had merely "popularized" the term. Regarding her source, Colbert, in-character, responded: "Fuck them."

On May 4 Liberal Party of Canada leadership contender Ken Dryden used "truthiness" as an extensive theme in a speech in the House of Commons. The speech dealt critically with the current government's Universal Child Care Plan. Dryden defined truthiness as "something that is spoken as if true that one wants others to believe is true, that said often enough with enough voices orchestrated in behind it, might even sound true, but is not true."

On June 3, 2006, after Colbert delivered the commencement speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, he was presented with both an honorary degree and a purple T-shirt bearing a logo that reads, "Veritasiness Tour", creating a semi-Latinized version of "truthiness".

Colbert uses defining qualities of truthiness to describe President Bush in person

On April 29, 2006, Colbert attended the White House correspondents' dinner and, in President Bush's immediate presence, described Bush's thought processes by repeating almost verbatim some of his original description of "truthiness," although he did not use the word itself.

Editor and Publisher again used "truthiness" to describe Colbert's criticism of President Bush, in an article published the same day entitled "Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner--President Not Amused?" E&P reported that the "blistering comedy 'tribute' to President Bush... left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close" and that many people at the dinner "looked a little uncomfortable at times, perhaps feeling the material was a little too biting--or too much speaking 'truthiness' to power." E&P reported a few days later that its coverage of Colbert at the dinner drew "possibly its highest one-day traffic total ever," and published a letter to the editor asserting that "Colbert brought truth wrapped in truthiness."

On the same weekend, the Washington Post published transcripts of segments from The Colbert Report under the heading "dept. of truthiness;" Salon covered Colbert at the White House dinner in an article entitled "The Truthiness Hurts: Stephen Colbert's brilliant performance unplugged the Bush myth machine -- and left the clueless D.C. press corps gaping;" and the popular news program 60 Minutes on CBS featured an interview with Colbert by Morley Safer, in which Safer discussed truthiness.

Colbert's effort at the WHCA dinner prompted "truthiness" to hit a new popularity peak in blog postings following the dinner - even though he did not actually use the word at the dinner, demonstrating the widespread association of Colbert with "truthiness."

The New York Times published two letters on the dinner in its May 3, 2006 edition, under the headline "Truthiness and Power."

Concepts that are similar to truthiness

Colbert's definition of "truthiness" is similar to George Orwell's concept of "double-think" from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four: "We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right."

The concept of truthiness also resembles Harry Frankfurt's definition of bullshit from his essay On Bullshit. He argues that, while liars at least recognize and respect the distinction between truth and falsehood before choosing to convey a falsehood, bullshitters seek to describe reality and make arguments without any concern for or interest in any distinction between truth and falsehood, or whether anything they say corresponds to objective truth.

Without referring to the word "truthiness," the attorney and best-selling author Glenn Greenwald described proponents of the Iraq War in a way that recalls the definition of truthiness:

"Every fact that contradicts their initial premises is discarded as fiction or the by-product of malice. Every opinion that undermines their position can be explained only by venal and corrupt motives. Every event that transpires which deviates from what they predicted ends up being the fault of others. ..."

"There is no fact which can't be dismissed away, no source whose motives are beyond reproach, no event which can't be blamed on others. ... Their beliefs are in place forever and are to be defended against any fact."

"Every possibility is in play except for an acknowledgment that they might have been wrong about something. ... There are few situations more destructive and dangerous than for a volatile situation to be controlled by people for whom faith in one's own rightness is infinitely more persuasive, and more sacred, than facts and reality."

With no evident irony, American Association of Petroleum Geologists communications director Larry Nation demonstrated the essence of truthiness when he defended his organization's controversial choice of a fiction novel, Michael Crichton's State of Fear, to win their 2006 Journalism Award by telling the New York Times, "It is fiction, but it has the absolute ring of truth."

Scientific basis of truthiness

In January 2006 a group of scientists led by Drew Westen announced at the annual Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in Palm Springs, California the results of a study in which functional magnetic resonance imaging showed that self-described Democrats and Republicans responded to negative remarks about their political candidate of choice in systematically biased ways. The corresponding article, entitled "The neural basis of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on political judgment during the U.S. Presidential election of 2004", is in press with the peer-reviewed Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Specifically, when Republican test subjects were shown self-contradictory quotes by George W. Bush and when Democratic test subjects were shown self-contradictory quotes by John Kerry, both groups tended to explain away the apparent contradictions in a manner biased to favor their candidate of choice. Similarly, areas of the brain responsible for reasoning (presumably the prefrontal cortex) did not respond during these conclusions while areas of the brain controlling emotions (presumably the amygdala and/or cingulate gyrus) showed increased activity as compared to the subject's responses to politically neutral statements associated with people percieved as being politically neutral (such as Tom Hanks).

Subjects were then presented with information that exonerated their candidate of choice. When this occurred, areas of the brain involved in reward processing (presumably the orbitofrontal cortex and/or striatum/nucleus accumbens) showed increased activity.

As Dr. Westen said, "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged...Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want...Everyone...may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts.'"

See also

• Verisimilitude
• Appeal to emotion
• Bellyfeel
• Factoid
• Lysenkoism
• Parrhesia
• Religiosity
• Truth
• Wisdom of repugnance
• Wishful thinking

References

1. "Language Log: Truthiness Or Trustiness?". Retrieved 2006-06-04.
2. "Benjamin Zimmer homepage". Retrieved 2006-06-04.
3. ^ "Word of the Week Archive". Retrieved 2006-06-04.
4. Marc Peyser (2006-02-13). "The Truthiness Teller". Newsweek. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
5. "The Colbert Report: Videos: The Word (Truthiness)". 2005-10-17. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. Nathan Rabin (2006-01-26). "Interview: Stephen Colbert". A.V. Club. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. Howard Kurtz (transcript) (2005-10-23). "CNN Reliable Sources". CNN. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
8. Jake Tapper (2005-10-18). "Awaiting the Stone Tablets". ABC News. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
9. Allesandra Stanley (2005-10-25). "Bringing Out The Absurdity Of the News". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. Jacques Steinberg (2005-12-25). "2005: In A Word: Truthiness". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
11. "'NY Times' Frank Rich Taking Book Leave". Editor and Publisher. 2006-01-22. Retrieved 2006-01-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
12. ^ David Carr (2006-01-30). "How Oprahness Trumped Truthiness". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
13. "Truthiness Voted 2005 Word of the Year by American Dialect Society" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-06-04.
14. Heather Clark (2006-01-07). "Honestly, "truthiness" is selected the word of 2005". The Seattle Times / Associated Press. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
15. "The Colbert Report: Videos: On Notice (A Glaring Omission)". Retrieved 2006-06-04.
16. "The Colbert Report: Videos: Threatdown". Retrieved 2006-06-04.
17. Jake Coyle (2006-01-13). "Colbert: AP the biggest threat to America". St. Paul Pioneer Press / Associated Press. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
18. "Exclusive "News": I'm Dead to Stephen Colbert". 2006-01-14. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
19. Chicago Tribune editorial board (2006-01-16). "The Truthiness Hurts". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2006-02-01. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
20. Marco R. della Cava (2006-01-15). "Truth falls to "Pieces" after suspect memoir". USA Today. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
21. Frank Rich (2006-01-22). "Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
22. "The Oprah Winfrey Show (transcript)". 2006-01-26. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
23. Jon Bonné (2006-01-27). "Oprah strikes a blow for truthiness". MSNBC. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
24. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/programs/midmorning/listings/mm20060102.shtml
25. http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/archives/2006/02/name_likeness_a.html
26. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11182033/site/newsweek/
27. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/will-americas-new-love-a_b_14809.html
28. http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=59703&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=%2Fshows%2Fthe_colbert_report%2Findex.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=
29. http://www.kendryden.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=8&lang=en
30. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002613019
31. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002425363
32. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002426165
33. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/29/AR2006042900126.html
34. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/05/01/colbert/index_np.html
35. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/main1553506.shtml
36. http://blogpulse.com/trend?query1=truthiness&label1=&query2=&label2=&query3=&label3=&days=180&x=23&y=13
37. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/opinion/l03colbert.html
38. "A Resolute Fantasy World". 2006-04-14. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
39. Cornelia Dean (2006-02-09). "Truth? Fiction? Journalism? Award Goes to . . ". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
40. "An fMRI study of motivated reasoning: Partisan political reasoning in the U.S. Presidential Election (draft copy)" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-06-04.
41. "Emory University Laboratory of Personality and Psychopathology: Publications". Retrieved 2006-06-04.
42. ^ "Emory Study Lights Up The Political Brain". Science Daily. 2006-01-31. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
43. Benedict Carey (2006-01-24). "A Shocker: Partisan Thought Is Unconscious". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-06-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

• Video feed of Stephen introducing "Truthiness" on The Colbert Report
• American Dialect Society Official Site
• Official Colbert Report Website at Comedy Central
• Language Log: Truthiness in Journalism
• Colbert Nation Official Homepage

• Linguistics
• The Colbert Report
• Logical fallacies
• Neologisms