Stephen Colbert, AP feud over "truthiness"

[Thomas Veil]

Well, it's not really a feud:

Colbert: AP is America’s ‘number 1 threat’
Comedian wants credit for coining ‘truthiness’
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:57 p.m. ET Jan. 12, 2006


NEW YORK - Stung by a recent Associated Press article that didn’t credit him for coining the word “truthiness,” Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert has struck back.

The world’s oldest news organization, Colbert says, is the “No. 1 threat facing America.”

On Wednesday evening, Colbert placed the AP atop the Threat Down segment of “The Colbert Report” show. What was No. 2?

Bears.

In October, on Colbert’s debut episode of the “Daily Show” spinoff, the comedian defined “truthiness” as truth that wouldn’t stand to be held back by facts. The word caught on, and last week the American Dialect Society named “truthiness” the word of the year.

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, is what it is,” Colbert told The AP on Thursday. “You’re not giving people the whole story about truthiness.”

“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. It’s defined as “characterized by truth” and includes the derivation “truthiness.”

Michael Adams, a visiting associate professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, pointed to that definition and has said Colbert’s claim to inventing the word is “untrue.” (Adams served as the expert opinion in the initial AP story.)

“The fact that they looked it up in a book just shows that they don’t get the idea of truthiness at all,” 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.”

If this were any more wry, you'd need pastrami to go with it.

Link

 

[Thanatoast]

Awesome. I totally support Colbert in his outraged disbelief.

 

[solvs]

He was always funny on TDS, but he does a great job as a mock pundit. I'm waiting for someone to think he's being serious. And then I will laugh at them. Because it's funny.

 

[iSaint]

He was always funny on TDS, but he does a great job as a mock pundit. I'm waiting for someone to think he's being serious. And then I will laugh at them. Because it's funny.

Watch his guest newscasters...they can never figure out what's coming next. Nancy Grace didn't get a word in edgewise, which is fine with me. Anderson Cooper at least joined in on the fun for the most part. It's hilarious!!! Thank god for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, my mom even watches it!

 

[andiwm2003]

He was always funny on TDS, but he does a great job as a mock pundit. I'm waiting for someone to think he's being serious. And then I will laugh at them. Because it's funny.

you think he's not serious?

but seriously, he's able to walk the fine line between doing nonsense stuff without getting silly. there is always something serious in his jokes.

 

[MattG]

I love his show. He tries to make himself come off like a "sick of the liberal media Bush supporter" type when in the end he just ends up mocking Bush and cronies.

He had this author on the other day who wrote a book about the Pope, and the conversation drifted over to how she was a speech writer for Bush Sr., and "why isn't Dubya a better public speaker." He made a comment about how "Dubya is my boy" but then he went on to ask her if he uses a "Speak-and-Spell" to prepare for his public addresses. Funny

 

[Thomas Veil]

I have to admit, when the show first came on, I wondered if the idea of a Daily Show spinoff was a mistake. Spinoffs are rarely as good as the original.

But Colbert has taken this in directions I never imagined. He is portraying the quintessential right-wing pompous @$$. There's a little bit of Limbaugh and others in his act, but you can't mistake the fact that, primarily, he's trying to out-O'Reilly Bill O'Reilly.

The interviews are indeed quite entertaining, especially when Colbert takes the side of some typical neocon argument and runs with it, emphasizing its absurdity, and trying to goad the guest into agreeing with him.

And "truthiness"...thank you, Stephen, for that addition to the language. I'll be using that a lot when talking politics with people.

 

[kainjow]

I LOVE this show. It's so hilarious, and makes The Daily Show seem rather dull (although I never watched it as much as Colbert Report).

“You don’t look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.”

 

[MattG]

I still like the Daily Show too, although it sometimes feels like something is missing with Steve Carell and Steven Colbert reporting.

I like Samantha Bee and Ed Helms a lot though. Anyone see the story on "Dish, TX" the other night? It was hysterical!!

 

[MattG]

Anyone see the "I Have a Dreamsicle" bit the other day? I thought it was pretty funny.

 

[solvs]

Anyone see the "I Have a Dreamsicle" bit the other day? I thought it was pretty funny.

Yeah, I didn't think it'd work, but it was pretty funny. He can get away with a lot because it's obvious parody.