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Over to You: Did Post-Truth Overshadow US Election Coverage?

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14/01/2017 GMT

Did Post-Truth Overshadow US Election Coverage?

BBC World Service - Over to You, Did Post-Truth Overshadow US Election Coverage?

Post-truth played a role in the US Elections but how did the BBC handle it?

Post-truth, its prominence in the US election, and the BBC’s role in helping the listener understand it.

Next week on 20 January, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the president of America. The BBC World Service covered this and the bitterly fought campaigns that took him there in 2016, but what did listeners think about how it handled the phenomenon of post-truth? It is a term which encompasses distortion, fakery and partisan reporting. It is the anomaly of something which is not true being believed because it is said enough times and shared repeatedly on social media. 

In order to discuss this phenomenon and its role in the US elections Rajan invited senior commissioning editor, Steve Titherington, and Allan Little, the BBC broadcaster whose documentary tackling this very subject aired recently on the network. Steve talks about lessons learned and the role the BBC needs to play in order to remain a trusted source of information. Allan Little reveals that he believes, in this post-truth era, the BBC needs to rethink what it means by balance.

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Did Post-Truth Overshadow US Election Coverage?

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