Commentary “The protesters falsely claimed that vaccines do not work.” So stated the reporter on last night’s TV news. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m homing in on that little weasel word “falsely.” Without it, the sentence would have read well enough—the protesters made a claim, which might be right or wrong. But to seed the phrase with “falsely” is to slide from the reasonable task of reporting into the realm of opinion, and beyond that into sheer propaganda. It happens so often that we hardly notice any more. That small word “falsely” is in fact a trigger warning, something routinely added to news reports of claims that are deemed to be contrary to the public interest or that run counter to the prevailing narrative. It alerts us that what we are about to hear is completely untrue. Strange, isn’t it, that the formative opinion-makers of our world, so subjective …