Happy Anniversary, Truthiness (and Colbert)

Rachel SklarOct 17th, 2010, 5:57 pm

Today is Oct. 17, 2010 — five years after the premiere of newly-sprung Daily Show correspondent Stephen Colbert‘s spinoff starring vehicle, The Colbert Report. The Repor — silent t, natch — debuted in the fall of 2005, after a certain media tide had turned with the Bush administration (remember the Newsweek Koran case? Remember the Judy Miller case? And there was the launch of a little site called the Huffington Post) and as the reality-based community was starting to push back, in earnest. Within a year, Colbert would have become a poster boy for that pushback in his memorable address to the White House Correspondents Dinner. Within a year, between bridges in Hungary, elephants on Wikipedia and greenscreens for everyone, he’d turn the whole Internet on its head. And then, of course, there was Truthiness.

Colbert launched his show with “Truthiness” as his first WØRD, officially launching the word into the media lexicon. Well, I say “officially” except that was a bit of a kerfuffle, as the AP reported on Truthiness’ ascension to “Word of the Year” status without crediting Colbert (and for the record, I broke that story on FishbowlNY, nerdily blogging it on a Sunday night. Oh, look what day it is today). Needless to say, Colbert was not happy, calling the AP “the #1 threat facing America.” Good times. The NYT has given Truthiness the profile treatment, sure, but we’d just like to point out that back in those lonely, early days of Janary 2006, less than 3 months in, one lonely blogger was on the case. And perhaps should get a life. Either way, please enjoy this trip down memory lane with the first-ever WØRD, sadly as relevant today as it ever was. Sigh.

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