 On January 31 , 2006 , Arianna Huffington used truthiness in The Huffington Post . Huffington later appeared as a guest on the March 1 , 2006 , episode of The Colbert Report . She challenged Colbert on his claim that he had invented the word truthiness . During the interview , Colbert declared , " I 'm not a truthiness fanatic ; I 'm truthiness ' father . " Huffington corrected him , citing Wikipedia , that he had merely " popularized " the term . Regarding her source , Colbert responded : " Fuck them ! " 
