But Biden had at least one bright moment when he deployed a rare word malarkey—to describe the torrent of misinformation unleashed by Trump. Biden couldn’t quite keep up with that cascade as he was too busy waffling; fittingly, he stopped by at Waffle House on his way home after the debate.
I had to look up ‘malarkey’. An American invention from the 1920s, it has synonyms aplenty: balderdash, baloney, blah, poppycock…. You get the point. The sheer amount of malarkey during that debate was described by one news platform as a “tsunami of falsity”; not surprisingly, fact-checkers are now having a field day spotting, categorising, grading the falsehoods and issuing corrections. Fact-checking, once an in-house job assigned to juniors and interns, is today a fast-growing pillar of modern journalism offering skyhigh growth. The raw material that fuels this profession seems unlimited: a never-ending supply of falsehood, fake news, half-truths and biased reporting. All easily and instantly propagated over the internet and social media.
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Denne historien er fra July 14, 2024-utgaven av THE WEEK India.
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Political discourse needs red line
The state of political discourse presently on display must surely seem like the norm to younger Indians, who might not have had any exposure to a more tolerant, courteous brand of adversarial politicking. Yet, as their parents would know, this was not always so.
Road to Paris, via India
All roads at Paris Fashion Week seemed to lead to India this season, even as the world’s most celebrated fashion week wound up earlier this week.
PURE MAGIC
A Potterhead and a Downton Abbey fan remembers Dame Maggie Smith
All eyes on Sharvari
A ₹130-crore blockbuster, unequivocal acclaim for two other films, and an upcoming release with Alia Bhatt as co-star— here is the girl Bollywood can’t get enough of
Priyamvada, the glittering star
A sheepish confession: I was dreadfully unaware of the super celebrity status of the very attractive, highly accomplished co-speaker at the just concluded Jaipur Literature Festival International’s first edition in Seattle.
For God's sake, do something!
Plip!…. Plip!….Plip!” “Do Something! For God’s sake, do something!” she wailed.
IT'S SHOWTIME!
The Coldplay mania shows the power of live entertainment and its immense business opportunity
Trump will not concede if he loses narrowly
In his book, All in the Family, Fred C. Trump III, reminisces about the night when Donald Trump decided to run for president for the first time.
EAR TO THE NEIGHBOUR'S GROUND
Not just at Nanda Devi, America's CIA and India’s Intelligence Bureau set up listening devices to monitor China at Khardung La, too
LALU NO LONGER ACTIVE; NITISH ALMOST A LAME-DUCK CHIEF MINISTER
Sheikhpura House is, at the moment, one of the most sought-after addresses in Patna.