"Alternative facts" are just additional information
| "Alternative facts" are just additional information | |
|---|---|
| MISLEADING | |
| "When White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said the press secretary had given "alternative facts" about the 2017 inauguration crowd, she simply meant additional facts." | |
| Domain | Politics & Elections |
| Tactic | Propaganda Technique |
| Era | Current |
| First seen | 2017 |
| Origin | Kellyanne Conway's interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," January 22, 2017, and her later explanation |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-30 |
| Further reading: books on Politics & Elections | |
On January 21, 2017, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Donald Trump's inauguration had drawn "the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period." Photographs and transit data showed the crowd was smaller than at Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration.
The next day on "Meet the Press," host Chuck Todd asked counselor Kellyanne Conway why Spicer had made a provably false claim. She said Spicer had given "alternative facts." Todd replied: "Alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods."
What the evidence shows
- The claim being defended. Aerial photographs and Washington Metro ridership figures showed a smaller crowd than in 2009. Spicer's statement included online and television viewers, but the specific claims he made about the crowd on the Mall were false.
- Later explanation. Conway later said she meant "additional facts and alternative information."
- Impact. The phrase became one of the most quoted of the year and was widely compared to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which returned to bestseller lists that week.
Why it matters
"Alternative facts" became shorthand for a political style that asks the public to set aside what it can see. The phrase is now a reference point in discussions of political gaslighting.
Gaslighting "Alternative facts" became shorthand for political gaslighting: asking the public to set aside what it can see. The word comes from Patrick Hamilton's 1938 play Gas Light and the 1944 film Gaslight, in which a husband dims the gas lamps and insists his wife is imagining it. Where the word comes from · More gaslighting cases
Sources
- NBC News, "Meet the Press" transcript, January 22, 2017.
- The Washington Post, "Spicer earns Four Pinocchios for false claims on inauguration crowd size," January 22, 2017.
- The New York Times, "'1984' Sales Soar After Kellyanne Conway's 'Alternative Facts'," January 24, 2017.