Topic: Post Truth

CNN's Jake Tapper and Brian Stelter discussed the concept of a "post-truth" world during a C-SPAN panel on the state of the news media. Tapper highlighted the danger of presidential claims regarding the "US armada" in Korea and the debunked link between vaccines and autism. The hosts mock the journalists for viewing Trump supporters as a "minority bubble" and dismiss their concerns about "alternative realities."

The hosts identify a new linguistic trend they call "modified uptalk," characterized by stretching out the last word of a sentence without a rising pitch. They play a clip of an activist demonstrating this style, noting how such idiosyncrasies spread through specific social "milieus." Additionally, they discuss the emergence of the term "fact-free" as a new media meme, following "post-truth" and "fact-check," to describe political rhetoric.

The Oxford Dictionary names "post-truth" as the word of the year for 2016. An RT segment defines the term as a shift where emotion outweighs objective facts in public opinion. The hosts argue that a lack of investigative resources in corporate media leads to the repetition of political lies.

Oxford Dictionaries selected "post-truth" as the 2016 Word of the Year. This choice is discussed alongside the frequent media use of "xenophobia" and "misogyny." The hosts express surprise that "xenophobia" did not win, given its sudden ubiquity in political discourse.

An investigation into the Ground Truth Project reveals its ties to Global Post and funding from major organizations like the Ford and Kaiser Family Foundations. The project aims to train a new generation of foreign correspondents but is scrutinized for its "media partners" including NPR, PBS, and RYOT News. The hosts describe RYOT News as a non-serious organization run by "hipsters."