Post-truth has eliminated the concept of objectivity in News: Prof. Govind Ji Pandey

It is the post-truth era, in which the West retreats and abandons the values of liberalism, objectivity, integrity, human solidarity, and globalization that many of its intellectuals praised. The emergence of some of the world leaders who won their election on the grounds of the nation first has played a very important role in establishing a new world order and importance of post-truth.

In the American election when Donald Trump fought the election on the grounds of America first, his appeals were more effective and connecting voters emotionally than Hillary Clinton's appeals. The only difference in both the presidential candidate's appeals was the elements of truth. Trump's statement was filled with the concept of making America, the greatest power and working for American citizens' benefit first, same was the motive of Hillary Clinton but the selection of words by Trump played a crucial role in the election. Hillary Clinton did not win, not because she was not popular but her inability to counter the post-truth constructed by Trump.

Elements of Post-truth - the followings are the main elements of post-truth

1- Facts are correct but the reference is not correct

2- Facts are incorrect but forcibly presented to be as truth

3- More emotional content than fact-based or objective

4- Frequently used in Social media as Fake news, Misinformation, etc.

Oxford University has chosen this word as the word of the year in 2016. The flood of information has on one side given us the opportunity to access more but it also brought the bane of access in life. As very well described in an old Indian proverb that access to anything and everything is dangerous proves to be true in the case of information access.

The more we get the more chances of getting incorrect or fake information as the sea of information hardly allows the boat of truth to float freely on its surface. We need a very strong system to check and balance the use of post-truth in media otherwise we would treat wrong as right and people who are not logical or do not have the means to check the truth of the facts will come under its influence. This will at the end damage the institutions of the democracy.