 Stephen Colbert , portraying his character Dr. Stephen T. Colbert , chose the word truthiness just moments before taping the premiere episode of The Colbert Report on October 17 , 2005 , after deciding that the originally scripted word – " truth " – was not absolutely ridiculous enough . " We 're not talking about truth , we 're talking about something that seems like truth – the truth we want to exist " , he explained . He introduced his definition in the first segment of the episode , saying : " Now I 'm sure some of the ' word police ' , the ' <unk> ' over at Webster 's are gonna say , ' Hey , that 's not a word ' . Well , anybody who knows me knows I 'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books . They 're elitist . Constantly telling us what is or isn 't true . Or what did or didn 't happen . " 
