ABSTRACT
In a Masters-level public relations class, a group of students had prepared a crisis case for their fellow students. At its core, the fictitious scenario involved the king of a European country crashing his luxury sports car in the inner city in the early hours of the morning under the influence of alcohol. Where and when public relations first emerged as a 'species', either bearing the name or not, is a matter of debate. What cannot be doubted, however, is that the strand of Anglo-American DNA in public relations' genes is strong, maybe even dominant. The term 'post-truth politics' is commonly ascribed to blogger David Roberts, who used it in 2010 to describe a political culture in which politics have become almost entirely disconnected from policy. The core of Roberts' argument was that people do not gather facts, build knowledge and then carefully weigh the pros and cons in order to arrive at reasoned political standpoints.
