>> host: we want to introduce you to kevin young and author. his book "bunk" sub 10 the rise of hoaxes, bumbug, plagiarists, post-facts and fake news coming out this fall. before we go too far into the book would he do for a living? >> guest: i am the new wish director of the schomburg center in harlem which is part of the public library system is a known that bin there since december. we have had some great announcements. we just got the james baldwin papers which were announced in april and we have just announced two days ago the sonny rollins papers so we are really excited to have those archived so close to harlem and the part of the cultural life there. we have been there 92 years on the same corner of 35th and lenox now malcolm x boulevard and we have those materials.

>> host: schomburg is part of the new york public library system. what is the focus? >> guest: the focuses african-american and african diaspora cultural life from history to art to photographs come everything. we have 11 million items relating to the diaspora and worldwide lack culture. i think that's what makes us unique. we started in 1925 as the division of the new york public library and carnegie library which is still standing and we were named the nationalist doric landmark in january. we are really coming full circle i feel like with acquisition which points to that long history starting in the heartland -- harlem renaissance documenting black life in black culture until the pleasant day and volt one and sonny rollins

were born in harlem and lived around the corner. to have them, then -- come home it's been really great. >> host: prior to joining the schomburg what were you doing? >> guest: i was a professor for 20 years 12 of those that emory university and there i got archives. that's how i got into the archive business but i'm also a poet and a writer. i had one previous nonfiction book called the grey album. from that i started getting interested in the subject of bunk which is hoaxes and liars and the american history of fakery. >> host: where did the word bunkum from? >> guest: comes from politics actually. during arguing over the missouri compromise and slavery someone from bunkum county which is in north carolina said i have to talk more for the people. people then started using bunkum

and then it became bunk as a political fiat i guess is the best way to talk about it. >> host: the current term fake news is not really thing new in our culture? >> guest: it's really two centuries of thinking about how did this come about? is a particularly american? what does that have to do with race and what does that have to do with now? a lot of that in the 1830s started with pt barnum is where i begin the book really comes about from new media. sounds familiar, right? that new media became a penny and that was sort of like a -- they were. scandalous. they were filled with hoaxes and filled with fakery. there is a famous hotel where is

they said they could see life on the moon. that hoax spurred on a lot of what we are seeing now in fake news. >> host: in your book you write that the transformative advance most resembles the current change demonstrated if not caused by the dash. >> guest: i think the internet is a free press and not in the media sense that you all are in but a sense of taking the penny press to its extreme and access. often they are getting reflected back what they like. penny press is very competitive and you see a lot of proliferation. it's a similar thing on the internet. also it's hard sometimes to debunk as it were these things.

they tend to circulate and that's what's happening whether we are talking about the news hoaxer of the fake news of the day and how hard it can be to untangle ourselves of the shared notions. it's become hard to read a k.. >> host: what about pt barnum? >> guest: pt barnum is helping to invent what we now think of as pop culture. he invented our notion of the circus. he took the sideshow which is lies the thing that made it professional and people would pay money and go to elegant places to see these figures of dubious origin. many of them also were -- one of his most famous hoax is the one that got them going is a showman was a woman named joy half.

he pretended that she was george washington as a black woman. he said she was 161 years old in toker around the northeast had said come see george washington's -- and this is a way of connecting to george washington the father of our country and physically examine her. it's very troubling mostly because she dies and he has a medical theater where he dissects her in front of people. he also reveals she wasn't that old. that's also part of the hoax, the revelation. that tells you a lot about this idea not only what you can say and make it patriotic to believe that it is a hoax but also questioning the hopes are wondering about the hoax. he was really great at making a

part of it and you see that now where the accusations of fake news are just as important as the revelations that they are fake and that kind of circle and circus as it were is part of barnum's legacy. >> host: trump said when the far more public mindset, one in which the truth isn't so much contested as it doesn't matter. >> guest: i don't know if i'm alone in saying this. we are in an interesting time where there are these questions about what is truth but those almost predate our current situation i think in the proliferation of those conspiracy theories. it's almost hard to eradicate in debunk these false notions. take obama's citizenry. what is that about this kind of birtherism that happened? i am tracing why do we have that at all. obviously it's about some of the same things that choice half

life and death were about. they are about citizenry patriotism and who belongs, all the kind of cosmic things that are part of our fabric of the nation. but they can be kind of resurrected just from a kind of suggestion. it's even hard now even though candidate trump's now president has denied and finally said that wasn't true. it's very hard to unsettle back and the notion of the longing and selfhood, that attack on the birth certificate president obama representative images to them why we do that in why people leave as much as why we believe. >> host: why do we believe as much as we believe? >> guest: some of it depends on who who we are but it's also

people who want to believe. we are programmed to and in the absence of an answer that is complicated and maybe troubling we sometimes settle for the easier. it be easy to believe that my discomfort comes from a fact that has been hidden from me. i think the difference between modern day -- barnum's day in now the notion of barnum had that i'm an expert and he would would -- but ultimately he gave the power to people to decide i'm an expert. i can see that. that looks like a mermaid to me. or that doesn't look like a mermaid. i was part of the show and now there's an assertion there is no expert. the scientist don't matter. there was a kind of fascinating denial of expertise and that i

think becomes more troubling and a difficult position to be in. >> host: "bunk" is the name of the book coming out in november, the rise of hoaxes, bumbug, plagiarists, post-facts and fake news. kevin young is the author. thanks for joining us. >> guest: thanks for having me. >> this is "the communicators" on c-span. we are talking to some of the presenters and some of the people who are here. joining us now is billy rios the founder of a company called whites go.