Our Fake Reality: Journalism, Legitimacy, and Post-Fact America

With many of the nation’s most reputable news sources, including the New York Times and the Washington Post being labeled “fake news,” it seems part of the US has adopted an adversarial posture toward reporting and facts. How have journalists adapted to these new conditions? Can political speech be fact-checkable in an era when journalists themselves are labelled by some as political actors? Through these and other questions, this event will explore how facts are manufactured while truth is claimed in both politics and journalism, and how our deeply divided nation often operates with sets of incompatible “facts.”

Bill Adair, founder of PolitiFact and Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University and winner of 2009 Pulitzer for National Reporting.

Nabiha Syed, Assistant General Counsel at BuzzFeed.

Manoush Zomorodi, former host of Note to Self from WNYC Studios.

Karen Mahabir, Head of Fact Checking at The Associated Press

This is the third of four evenings featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning writers and journalists. This initiative seeks to deepen the public’s knowledge and appreciation of the vital connections between democracy, the humanities, journalism, and an informed citizenry.

Humanities NY thanks The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for their generous support of this initiative and the Pulitzer Prizes for their partnership.