Alternative facts

"Alternative facts" is a phrase used by U.S. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway during a Meet the Press interview on January 22, 2017, in which she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's false statement about the attendance at Donald Trump's inauguration as President of the United States. When pressed during the interview with Chuck Todd to explain why Spicer "utter[ed] a provable falsehood", Conway stated that Spicer was giving "alternative facts." Todd responded, "Look, alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods."

Conway's use of the phrase "alternative facts" to describe what are demonstrably falsehoods was widely mocked on social media and sharply criticized by journalists and media organizations, such as Dan Rather, Jill Abramson, and the Public Relations Society of America. The phrase was extensively described as Orwellian; by January 26, 2017, sales of the book Nineteen Eighty-Four had increased by 9,500%, becoming the number one best seller on Amazon.com.

On January 21, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held his first press briefing. He accused the media of deliberately underestimating the size of the crowd for President Trump's inaugural ceremony and stated that the ceremony had drawn the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – period – both in person and around the globe." According to all available data, Spicer's claims and allegations were false. Aerial images showed that the turnout for Trump's inauguration was lower than the turnout for the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. Spicer claimed that 420,000 people rode the DC Metro on inauguration day 2017, compared to 317,000 in 2013. It is "unclear where his 420,000 figure... comes from" or what time periods he was comparing. Actual ridership figures between midnight and 11 AM were 193,000 in 2017, 317,000 in 2013. Full-day ridership was 570,557 in 2017, 782,000 in 2013.

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