Long before the current preoccupation with "fake news," American newspapers routinely ran stories that were not quite, strictly speaking, true. Today, a firm boundary between fact and fakery is a hallmark of journalistic practice, yet for many readers and publishers across more than three centuries, this distinction has seemed slippery or even irrelevant. From fibs about royal incest in America's first newspaper to social-media-driven conspiracy theories surrounding Barack Obama's birthplace, Andie Tucher explores how American audiences have argued over what's real and what's not-and why that matters for democracy.
Early American journalism was characterized by a hodgepodge of straightforward reporting, partisan broadsides, humbug, tall tales, and embellishment. Around the start of the twentieth century, journalists who were determined to improve the reputation of their craft established professional norms and the goal of objectivity. However, Tucher argues, the creation of outward forms of factuality unleashed new opportunities for falsehood: News doesn't have to be true as long as it looks true. Propaganda, disinformation, and advocacy-whether in print, on the radio, on television, or online-could be crafted to resemble the real thing. Dressed up in legitimate journalistic conventions, this "fake journalism" became inextricably bound up with right-wing politics, to the point where it has become an essential driver of political polarization. Shedding light on the long history of today's disputes over disinformation, Not Exactly Lying is a timely consideration of what happens to public life when news is not exactly true.
Long before the current preoccupation with "fake news," American newspapers routinely ran stories that were not quite, strictly speaking, true. Today, a firm boundary between fact and fakery is a hallmark of journalistic practice, yet for many readers and publishers across more than three centuries, this distinction has seemed slippery or even irrelevant. From fibs about royal incest in America's first newspaper to social-media-driven conspiracy theories surrounding Barack Obama's birthplace, Andie Tucher explores how American audiences have argued over what's real and what's not-and why that matters for democracy.
Early American journalism was characterized by a hodgepodge of straightforward reporting, partisan broadsides, humbug, tall tales, and embellishment. Around the start of the twentieth century, journalists who were determined to improve the reputation of their craft established professional norms and the goal of objectivity. However, Tucher argues, the creation of outward forms of factuality unleashed new opportunities for falsehood: News doesn't have to be true as long as it looks true. Propaganda, disinformation, and advocacy-whether in print, on the radio, on television, or online-could be crafted to resemble the real thing. Dressed up in legitimate journalistic conventions, this "fake journalism" became inextricably bound up with right-wing politics, to the point where it has become an essential driver of political polarization. Shedding light on the long history of today's disputes over disinformation, Not Exactly Lying is a timely consideration of what happens to public life when news is not exactly true.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. “False Reports, Maliciously Made”
2. “Important If True”
3. “Not Exactly Lying”
4. “I Believe in Faking”
5. “We Did Not Call It Propaganda”
6. “Nothing That Is Not Interesting Is News”
7. “Why Don’t You Guys Tell the Truth Once in a While?”
8. “So Goddamn Objective”
9. “The Bastards Are Making It Up!”
10. “Fake but Accurate”
Conclusion: “A Degenerate and Perverted Monstrosity”
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Andie Tucher is the H. Gordon Garbedian Professor and the director of the Communications PhD Program at the Columbia Journalism School. She is the author of Froth and Scum: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and the Ax Murder in America’s First Mass Medium (1994) and Happily Sometimes After: Discovering Stories from Twelve Generations of an American Family (2014). Tucher previously worked in documentary production at ABC News and Public Affairs Television.
In this artfully written account, Andie Tucher offers a sweeping
history of misinformation and the American press. Most strikingly,
Not Exactly Lying reveals that the present panic surrounding
so-called “fake news” has missed the point: It’s the modern
profusion of “fake journalism”—the appropriation of journalistic
standards to serve up puffery, propaganda, and hyperpartisan
fare—that is more concerning for the future of media and public
life.
*Seth C. Lewis, Shirley Papé Chair in Emerging Media at the
University of Oregon*
Not Exactly Lying provides a beautifully written and deeply
researched history of “fake news” and “fake journalism” in the
United States, offering deep context for understanding our
contemporary democratic crisis and the role of journalism in that
crisis. Tucher takes on one of the most urgent issues of our
day.
*Kathy Roberts Forde, coeditor of Journalism and Jim Crow: White
Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America*
In exploring the various ways that fakes and falsehoods have made
their way to the public as “journalism” and “news,” Tucher follows
a number of trends: the evolving internal conventions of and
boundaries around journalism, the introduction of new media
technologies, the waxing and waning of partisan influence on and
control over key news outlets, and changing public appetites for
news. Not Exactly Lying shows that the enemy of good journalism is
not slant but untruth.
*Michael Stamm, author of Dead Tree Media: Manufacturing the
Newspaper in Twentieth-Century North America*
Tucher’s expansive history of fake journalism and fake news makes a
compelling read and a powerful argument for the importance of truth
in news.
*American Journalism*
An illuminating and extremely timely exposé.
*H-Journalism History*
Professional journalists and historians would be well-served to
explore Not Exactly Lying to gain a greater understanding of the
origins, role, and impact of fake news on the past and present.
*LSE Review of Books*
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