It's certainly better that the NYT is running a story like this than a lot of the things they run, but I would really, really, really like to know why they continue to use the word "falsehoods" instead of "lies." It's a word no one ever, ever uses in real life. bsky.app/profile/rmac...
a falsehood is a lie with some "alleged" baked in
Once again, note that the author, Ryan Mac, does not write the headline. Mac has been doing really great reporting for a long time.
A lie implies deception; a falsehood does not. Seems like a legally important distinction.
And then it just replaced "lie" in general as an easy way to avoid all issues, even though in a case like this it's clear that the guy knows his house didn't burn down and was lying, and that would be the proper word to use.
Right, but in this case, Benny Johnson knows his house wasn't burned to the ground. He was clearly lying about it.
Because no one ever uses it. The public has been trained that "falsehoods" is media and politician speak and just something to argue about. I bet most people think it's argument about semantics. Whereas lie is easy to understand. It's loaded, and the right will cry bias
That’s been one of my peeves about all the news orgs. They should remove the word “falsehood” from all dictionaries. “Lie” is a much more straightforward and accurate description.
It’s like those movies: Sex Falsehoods and Videotape, True Falsehoods, Secrets and Falsehoods, Body of Falsehoods, Big Little Flasehoods ….
Pretty Little Falsehoodians
Dammit, “falsehoodlums” was right there and I missed it
calling someone a blatant lier instead of falsehoods has greater chance of being sued.
I think the excuse is, they can't be sure what the person knows or doesn't know,so to call it a lie, it has to be an intentional mis statement of fact. And since they can't be sure if it's intentional or not Horseshit
I know why they use falsehoods but also I would think a NYT reporter could find out if someone was actually murdered on Benny Johnson’s front lawn?
If “Promoted Falsehoods” is replaced by “Lied,” it would save 15 characters in the headline, and be much easier to understand