Reporter’s Notebook: The truth about Rihanna, not the ‘truthiness’

The battle to get ‘Haaretz’ to correct a false story about the pop star singing for “Palestine” may not be the most important fight – but it was worth it.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “truthiness,” a term coined by comedian Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Show in 2005, as “truth that comes from the gut, not books” or “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”

What would you do if you opened a news website and saw a blaring example of “truthiness?” If a newspaper that people trust printed a complete fabrication that conveniently fits a very specific agenda often touted by that publication?

After I wrote my review of pop star Rihanna’s concert in Tel Aviv earlier this week, I did some Googling to see how she was received elsewhere and I found that a Haaretz reporter must have gone to some other, top-secret Rihanna concert in Tel Aviv.

The headline read: “All Rihanna sees ‘is Palestine,’ but Israelis didn’t seem to care.” Continue reading