pseudo-event

But if we can pull away, once again, from “What does this mean for the Democrats?” and the ghoulish social media gloating of Individual 1 and his many fans, and regard this pseudo-event from the perspective of Tanzania or Indonesia or Mars, I think the verdict is clear.

They were what the historian Daniel Boorstin described in “The Image” as a “pseudo-event,” a manufactured happening given the appearance of importance by media coverage.

That was when we finally got a glimpse of how this pseudo-event was going to be received by the media.

While it’s worth noting that the recurring pseudo-event that is the White House press conference is hardly an ideal venue for intelligent inquiry, it’s also worth noting that there certainly is such thing as a dumb question.

Sixty years ago, Daniel J. Boorstin, a historian who became the Librarian of Congress, came up with a term: the "pseudo-event."