Incredibly, not once in a more than 800-word column celebrating, in part, Jones’ courtroom comeuppance did the columnist write “liar”. The NYT, in the same piece, reached - predictably - for the always-reliable euphemisms, “bogus claims” and “theory”, proving that camouflaging the truth behind polite-sounding language remains in vogue at the newspaper.Ī more egregious example of this infuriating tendency - even in the most blatant cases - not to employ “liar” when it demands to be used, came courtesy of a Washington Post opinion and editorial writer. Is the word too harsh, too frank, too judgemental to be employed - despite being accurate? If the evidence is clear and convincing that Jones repeatedly lied, why not label him a “liar”? This, however, raises some perplexing questions. To her credit, the NYT reporter referred to Jones’ Sandy Hook “lies” four times in the body of her story. Nor was a “fabulist” responsible for insisting the parents of those murdered elementary schoolchildren were “actors”. No, a “fabulist” was not responsible for the “torment” and “threats” endured by the families of murdered elementary schoolchildren. Jones was also identified as a “fabulist” in the subheading attached to the story.
“In wrenching testimony Tuesday, the families of eight Sandy Hook victims began telling a jury about years of torment and threats they had endured after the Infowars fabulist Alex Jones claimed the school massacre was a government hoax in which they were ‘actors,’” the NYT wrote.
#WORD AMONG US TORRENT#
Here is how a September 13, 2022, NYT dispatch described the testimony of several of the dead Sandy Hook children’s families before a jury considering the damages Jones owed them for the harm his torrent of debased lies had caused. In this grotesque context, I was astonished to read that the New York Times (NYT) and Washington Post - the stubborn bastions of editorial gentility - opted to call Jones a “fabulist” in recent weeks. He lied when he said on his Infowars program that the parents of all the dead children were “crisis actors”. He lied when he said the carnage “looked like a drill”. He lied when, within hours of the shooting, he said the massacre at Sandy Hook was “staged.” He lied when he said the killing of 20 children between six and seven years old, and six teachers and staff, “was as phoney as a $3 bill” and “stinks to high heaven”. His lies are not only sinister, they betray the figments of a mind untethered from fact and empathy. On Wednesday, a jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $1bn in damages to families of victims of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, which he lied about, dismissing it as a hoax.įact: Jones lies like a human spigot.
Instead, the other simple and blunt meaning of the word comes to my mind instantly when I suffer the nauseating affront of reading or hearing his foul name: “Liar”. Like most people who possess even a scintilla of decency and an understanding of the distinction between fact and falsehood, I have never associated the whimsical word “fabulist” with Alex Jones - a marauding mountebank who has leveraged his malevolent mouth into money and fame. The German Brothers Grimm and the celebrated Honduran short-story teller Augusto Monterroso are among a litany of literary icons of this fantastical genre. The ancient Greek author, Aesop, heads the pantheon of fable writers.
Perhaps that’s because a common definition describes a “fabulist” as a “person who composes or relates fables”. The word has a hint of child-like innocence about it, too. Goodness, it’s only one syllable away from “fabulous”. It’s such a pretty little word, isn’t it? It’s even prettier when you say it out loud.
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