A power struggle over the authority to adjudicate the "truth of the Gospel" is developing within the transnational Anglican Communion.

Fuelling this emerging stand-off is a tendency to exaggerate the shortcomings of one's opponent, to the point of engaging in character assassination. The internet has become a powerful tool in this rhetorical battle, but with the consequence that truth is often being compromised for truthiness.

The American "late night" comedian Stephen Colbert coined the term "truthiness" to describe a trend in contemporary media. Colbert offered the following definition to the term: "The quality of stating concepts or facts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."

The concept of truthiness describes how, in a great deal of discourse in the media, truth claims that are made on the basis of intuition or feeling have come to trump those supported by evidence and fact-checking.

It not so much that a great many people are lying in the media; rather, an increasing number of people are becoming unconcerned with verifying their claims or with questioning the accuracy of statements by people who seem to share their own biases. In other words, "If it sounds right, it must be correct." Exaggeration and leaving out inconvenient detail are often the order of the day.

As leaders in the Anglican Communion have taken to accusing each other of promoting "false Gospels," a tendency to slide into truthiness has emerged in the Anglican media. A few examples serve to illustrate this phenomenon.

The Anglican video journalist Kevin Kallsen, together with George Conger (an Episcopal priest from Florida) post a weekly video-blog called Anglicans Unscripted . The programme focuses on specific issues emerging in the Episcopal Church or elsewhere in the Anglican Communion, about which Kallsen and Conger offer their opinions. On occasion, however, they display a tendency to cross the line, not only between journalism and advocacy, but also between truth and truthiness.

Consider, for example, their coverage of the Archbishop of Canterbury's visit to the second Global Anglican Future's Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, in October 2103. Archbishop Justin Welby had been in his post for less than a year, and it was clear that his visit to this conference hosted by the leaders of the Anglican churches of the Global South would be complicated, possibly even contentious.

During Anglican Unscripted episode 84, Kallsen and Conger report that the Archbishop of Canterbury's performance "was a disaster." However, after George Conger summarised a speech delivered in the Archbishop's hearing by then Archbishop Peter Jensen (Sydney, Australia), I became rather suspicious about the way the story was being told.

During the first day of the conference, at a private luncheon at an outdoor restaurant, Archbishop Jensen delivered a talk at which Justin Welby was present. As he tells the story, Conger first pauses to mock the appearance of the Archbishop of Canterbury: "Justin Welby wore sunglasses throughout the lunch. He looked like King Farouk in a nightclub - like somebody's who's there [but] who just doesn't want to be seen to be there." Presumably, this is an allusion to King Farouk of Egypt, who ruled the country from 1936 to 1952, was known for his lavish lifestyle, and who was overthrown by revolutionaries. After mocking the Archbishop in this fashion, Conger then continues with his story:

"Peter Jensen, the General Secretary of GAFCON, gave an address to Justin Welby. In a nutshell, he said that 'this is not a battle between political factions; This a battle between "light and dark." We're talking about spiritual warfare. Justin Welby, you cannot be a neutral bystander in a battle of spiritual light versus dark; either lead or get out of the way.' And from everyone I spoke with ... Justin Welby came away gobsmacked."

When I first watched this video, I was puzzled by this account because I had previously watched a version of Peter Jensen's speech. GAFCON had posted both the text of his comments and a video on their webpage. What struck me after again watching the video and reading the text is that it did not sound much like the account provided by Conger. There is no mention of "spiritual warfare" or the imagery of "light and dark." Archbishop Jensen does not address Archbishop Welby directly or suggest that he might need to "get out of the way."

While it is clear that Archbishop Jensen intended to offer a defence for the GAFCON movement - denying that it is "schismatic" and calling it a "movement for unity" - after criticising the church in North America, the most aggressive comment he makes is, "Who will stand with us?"

Given this evidence, I can only describe the reporting of Anglican Unscripted on this event as an example of truthiness. To being with, when I first watched Conger tell his story, I had the impression that this was a first-hand account. He tells it like he was there. But after watching the video a number of times, I noticed that he quickly mentions in an aside that "we've had various reports from this, from half a dozen people." So Conger is actually summarizing what other people have told him about the dinner.

This being the case, I am not questioning the honesty of George Conger; I am simply highlighting that he did not check his facts, which were available to be checked. The concept of truthiness captures this relative disinterest in confirming the details of a situation when a story "feels right."

The other way the reporting edges on the side of truthiness is how the subject of the story is mocked while the situation is being described. This is a style of narrative driven by an emotive and polemical tone, rather than careful attention to detail and nuance. Justin Welby is a northerner who had just flown in to Kenya from the United Kingdom the previous evening: is it so odd that he might need to wear sunglasses while sitting outside for lunch in Nairobi? The sympathy of the story-teller is not with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that tone shapes the way the story is told. Moreover, it is clear that whoever summarized the speech to George Conger was more interested in communicating an emotional tone and certain values, rather than the specific details of what was said.

A second example illustrates how Archbishop Welby frequently appears to be a target of considerable criticism by these video-bloggers. Once again, however, an element of truthiness shapes the tone of the commentary.

On 3 October 2013, Archbishop Welby was asked during an interview with the Church of Ireland Gazette to comment on the present relationship between the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and the Anglican Communion. The ACNA had formally withdrawn from the Episcopal Church USA, and its status in the Communion remained controversial. Archbishop Welby replied, "Well, the ACNA is a separate church; it is not part of the Anglican Communion." The interviewer, Canon Ian Ellis, then followed up by asking, "Can it be in communion with the Anglican Communion, or is that something for the future?" The Archbishop answered, "Well, it's clearly for the future, because it's not part of the Communion." He did acknowledge the possibility of reconciliation in the future, but for now the ACNA was only an "ecumenical partner" in the "church of Christ," rather than a member of the Anglican Communion.

How did Anglican Unscripted cover this story? In episode 127, after Kevin Kallsen refers to the interview as "Justin's gaff," George Conger picks up the story:

"Justin Welby set off a bomb on Friday ... by deciding what it means to be an Anglican, burying the other Instruments of Unity, and just upending everything. His statement was such that the Principal of Moore College in Sydney [Australia] ... said it was a 'slap in the face to the GAFCON Primates'. It really was that big a gaff. And what did he do? He said the ACNA is not Anglican. Now the conversation began about the Anglican Communion, and is the ACNA a member of the Communion. Well, no, it's not. It's not a member of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). And that in recent years has sort of been seen as the mark of being in the Anglican Communion."

Notice at this point that Conger's account gives the same answer to Canon Ellis that Justin Welby did: the ACNA is not a member of the Communion. But then he continues:

"But, you know, the Church of Nigeria and some other African churches don't pay their dues to the ACC anymore, and they don't send their delegates to the meetings ... There really is no hard and fast rule anymore about what it means to be in the Anglican Communion ... This is an issue that's in flux. But the Archbishop of Canterbury didn't limit himself to discussing the Anglican Communion, he went on to discuss what it means to be Anglican. And he said, 'it is being in Communion with me'."

At this point, Conger's commentary and analysis begin to drift into the realm of truthiness. He is certainly correct when he suggests that the definition and authorities of the Anglican Communion are very much contested in the present moment. But the tone of his argument is rather casual in its representation of the situation, and of what Archbishop Welby said in his interview.

Despite the fact that the nature of the Communion is under dispute, there is such a thing as an official list of the membership of the Anglican Communion, maintained by the Anglican Communion Office and published on its website. While it is accurate to highlight the contemporary tensions over the question of membership, it is quite another to suggest that Justin Welby was somehow being indiscreet or arrogant to answer the question of the basis of this official list.

Furthermore, Conger misrepresents the order of the interview when he suggests that, after answering the question about the ACNA, Archbishop Welby goes a step further by claiming the authority to be able to define who is an "Anglican." In fact, this part of the discussion occurred at the very beginning of the interview (prior to the question of whether the ACNA is a member of the Communion), when the Archbishop was answering a different question that Canon Ellis had asked him: whether the Archbishop had "encountered any commonalities during his travels" to many different provinces of the Communion. One of the three commonalities Archbishop Welby identities is the following, "Virtually everywhere I've gone, the definition of being part of the Anglican Communion is being in communion with Canterbury. And I haven't punted that; I was quite surprised to hear that."

So, on this point, Conger is simply misrepresenting what was said during the interview with the Church of Ireland Gazette. He was clearly annoyed with the Archbishop's answer on the question of ACNA membership, and this frustration appears to have influenced his grasp of the facts.

My intention on this point is not to get into a debate over the technicalities of membership of the Anglican Communion or over the definition of Anglican identity. I do not deny that these issues are contested, and Kevin Kallsen and George Conger helpfully point this out. The purpose of this analysis of these two video-blogs is otherwise: to highlight how sometimes online editorials such as that of Conger and Kallsen cross the boundary that separates truth from truthiness.

This phenomenon is relatively new, and the influence of websites like AnglicanTV is powerful in scope and effect. To note this is not to urge the church to adopt a Luddite attitude and shun the blogosphere. But the propensity of new media treatments of controversial issues to slide into the realm of truthiness is a significant danger that requires greater attention and scrutiny. More public discussion of this problem in the church is needed, and I would hope that Christians will learn to be better critical readers of the blogosphere.

If the internet is indeed to be a site of Christian "witness," then greater attention and care must be taken, by all involved, and greater reflection devoted to discerning what such a call to "witness" entails in the blogosphere. If indeed "the medium is the message," then how Christian witness is presented will do much to shape its content. Defending the "truth of the Gospel" is not well served by the preaching of "truthiness."

Christopher Craig Brittain is an Anglican priest, Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, and author of the forthcoming book, Plague on Both Their Houses: Liberals vs. Conservatives and the Divorce of the Episcopal Church USA.