Jan 12, 7:15 PM EST
Stephen Colbert 'feuds' with AP over word
By JAKE COYLE
AP Entertainment Writer
(snip)
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.
(snip)
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."
(snip)
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."
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TV_COLBERT_VS_AP?SITE=CARIE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-01-12-19-15-43
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