Why Is It so Hard for Journalists to Use the Word “Lie?”

-first published in Substack blog “The “Last Editor” on January 14, 2026

I was recently reminded of an editorial decision I made some 20 years ago when I was the news director at KOMU-TV in Columbia, Missouri. Most people reading this know the station is a commercial, NBC affiliate, but also the teaching lab for the Missouri School of Journalism. I had two jobs, really—news director running the newsroom like every other person with the same title does, and college professor teaching journalism classes that had newsrooms shifts as their labs.

A big story at the time was the financial crisis inside the hospital owned and run by the university—it, too, a teaching lab. The institution was losing money fast and campus leadership started making moves to fix it. It’s important to note that KOMU is far from a typical college TV station. We usually shied away from covering trivial things at the university since we were a main news source for all 14 counties in central Missouri and didn’t want to come off as the TV version of a campus newspaper. But this was a big deal with a lot of jobs and the health of the locals at stake, so we were aggressively covering it.

We got word through our sources that the chancellor—the leader of the Columbia campus (some schools call this position “president”)—had fired the hospital CEO. Our reporter asked the chancellor point blank about it (if I recall it was at a news conference) and he said the hospital CEO had not been fired. So the reporter went to the CEO—whom we had to find at home—to get more information. The CEO told our reporter—and this is pretty close to the actual quote—“I’ve been told I’m terminated and not to come to work and I don’t get paid anymore.” So OK, fired.

The reporter wrote up the story and as it turns out, I was the person in the editor’s seat (Tiger Chair—IYKYK) that day to go over the story. The chancellor had clearly lied about not firing the hospital CEO, but the reporter had language something like, “the chancellor gave a different account regarding the fate of the CEO.” So I asked the reporter, “Why didn’t you just write that the chancellor lied?” The reporter wasn’t sure, saying it didn’t sound right or something like that. But it was right and I changed the copy to read something to the effect of: “The University of Missouri chancellor lied today when asked specifically if he had fired the University Hospital CEO.” The story aired multiple times with my language and I was happy about that. We called a liar a liar.

Word got back to me a couple of days later that the chancellor was furious he was called a liar on the air—even though his office eventually confirmed the CEO had, indeed, been fired (I give some credit to this chancellor that he never came down on me personally for the story. He was ultimately my boss—three levels above me in the org chart—but never called the newsroom or reached out to me to complain. He knew the story was accurate and left it at that). I do think it’s important to know he was upset at the accurate label he had put on him, but more on that in a moment.

The reason this memory from two decades ago came to mind is that Instagram recently fed me a nine year-old clip of Peter Alexander, then NBC News White House correspondent, at a first-term Donald Trump news conference.

Trump had claimed he had the largest electoral college victory (referring to his 304-227 electoral college win in 2016) since Ronald Reagan. Alexander challenged the assertion, noting that Barack Obama had won with a 365-173 electoral vote total. To that, Trump said, “Well, I’m talking about Republicans.” Alexander was ready with the numbers, citing George H.W. Bush’s 426-111 win in 1988. Trump brushed it off, saying “I was just given the information.” Alexander continued to press him, saying “Why should Americans trust you when you accuse the information they receive of being fake when you’re providing information that is not accurate.” Alexander’s choice of words here is important. That long and awkward question would have been better stated as, “Why should Americans trust you when you’re lying.” But the word “lie” never comes up in the exchange.

It’s important to note here that when I talk about lying, I’m talking about statements that are demonstrably false. The 2016 electoral win claim by Trump was demonstrably false—the numbers show it to be a lie. What I’m not talking about are statements like we’re getting today that “the economy is doing great.” While most indicators would show that is probably not true, there’s no single hard number that proves or disproves “doing great.” Trump and other politicians make plenty of statements that are misleading or incomplete, but we can’t call those lies.

This unwillingness to call a lie a lie isn’t limited to Peter Alexander or NBC News.

A Google search of the phrase “Trump lies” shows only partisan publishers like MS Now and The Daily Beast using that exact phrase, along with editorials and commentary in mainstream news operations like the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. A search of “Biden lies” reveals the mirror image of the Trump search, with partisan publishers like Fox News and the New York Post using the phrase. I did find one interesting exception in the Biden search to the apparent unwritten rule against using the “L” word. CNN published a piece in February 2021 with the headline “Biden lies less than Trump, fact-checkers say. But he’s not perfect.” I admire the use of the word “lies” in the headline, but the piece doesn’t follow through on calling Biden a liar, instead opting for “Like most politicians, Biden exaggerates and embellishes at times…Biden made at least four false statistical claims during a CNN town hall last week on issues including the minimum wage, undocumented immigrants, China’s workforce and the Covid-19 vaccine.” Using “exaggerates and embellishes” and “false statistical claims” rather than “lies” let’s Biden off the hook too easily. And reporters and editors do the same for Trump on a daily basis.

There’s a real cost to avoiding the word “lie” in our reporting.

We’re undoubtedly living in a post-truth world. Politicians have always played it loose with the facts, but two Trump electoral victories have shown there’s no longer any penalty for lying. We can expect the mid-term elections this year and the general election of 2028 to be the most lie-filled campaigns in American history. I’m not sure calling those candidates liars will help stem the flood of mistruths coming out of their mouths. But I think we can have an impact at the local and maybe even the state level. There’s something about being called a liar on air or in print in your local media that’s personal. Remember that Mizzou chancellor from 20 years ago? His being called a liar on local TV hurt. I know it did. I truly believe letting voters know a city council candidate is lying can get that candidate to change tactics—or possibly end a campaign.

We shouldn’t limit calling out liars just to politicians.

We’re seeing unprecedented levels of lying in the private sector, too. When local businesses lie about something they’ve done, we must call them on it. And we need to name names. Saying Company X lied doesn’t have the same impact as naming the media relations person who lied or, better yet, the CEO.

I charge anyone reading this who’s currently working in journalism to put the words “lie” and “liar” into regular use. Remember, I’m not talking about claims that can be interpreted different ways or be a matter of opinion. But when we see anyone lying about a concrete fact that can be proved, we must act. Call out the lie and back up your reporting with the actual facts that show it to be a lie. Sure, you’ll be attacked as biased and unprofessional, but they’re going to keep calling us that anyway. We might as well hit back with the strongest word we have to call them what they are.