Chief Writer of WaPo’s Fact-Checker Caught Shamelessly Lying in Tweet
Considering that trust in traditional media sources is at an all-time low, you would think that journalists would start to understand they have a long way to go in re-establishing their credibility.
Disappointingly (but unsurprisingly), they are doubling down on their lies.
Glenn Kessler, chief writer for The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” tweeted Tuesday that “[w]e rarely fact check statements by PR people like Press Secretaries,” furthering that “[w]e only did that once or twice during [the Trump and Obama administrations]” because “we prefer to pin the Pinocchios” on policy-makers.
We rarely fact check statements by PR people like Press Secretaries. We only did that once or twice during Trump and Obama. We have a high bar for such statements because we prefer to pin the Pinocchios on a policy-maker and hold her or her accountable for their words….
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 26, 2021
Sounds like responsible journalism, right? Unfortunately, not a lick of it is true.
One Twitter user collected 12 tweets, dating as far back as four days after former President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017, in which Kessler attempted to contradict the Trump administration, or accuse them of political spin.
https://t.co/OUmseOFB2A pic.twitter.com/j1EYW8HEte
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) January 26, 2021
Now, most of these tweets were just that, meaning they weren’t attached to an official Washington Post fact check. Still, considering Kessler’s role as The Post’s “chief” fact-checker and the clear nature of those posts as effective fact checks, it’s not a stretch to say that he fact-checked Trump’s press secretaries many, many times.
And Kessler himself even admitted in a follow-up post that he “was factchecked and it turns out we did 3 fact checks of [former Trump administration press secretary Sean] Spicer. And it looks like 1 of Sarah Sanders.”
However, he claimed that was still “a tiny portion of our fact checks.”
addendum: I was factchecked and it turns out we did 3 fact checks of Spicer. And it looks like 1 of Sarah Sanders. Still, a tiny portion of our fact checks. Maybe it was once a year for the Obama folks too. My favorite: https://t.co/yB5mdUZVug
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 26, 2021
Once again, it is evident that the so-called “fact-checkers” are more interested in advancing their own narrative than they are in pursuing the truth. This is a major contributor to the division our country is struggling with.
That is not to say that conservatives should be exempt from investigation or criticism. Rather, what conservatives desire from the mainstream media is consistency and accountability.
Ideally, journalists should serve as a bulwark for our republic, holding elected officials and civil administrators (regardless of their political affiliation) accountable for their actions.
Sadly, that is not the case, and it is something the Founding Fathers struggled with just as we do — George Washington even referred to the media of his era as “infamous scribblers.”
The notion of journalism as being an instrument of the common good didn’t come until much later, and as The Washington Post has made it clear, our struggle is far from over.
The worst part of it all is that the mainstream media appears to genuinely believe the unambiguously pro-Democratic narrative that it has constructed.
Clearly, the American people will have to inform them that the truth is much more nuanced than that.
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