The Washington Post’s chief fact-checker Glenn Kessler is claiming innocence in a Twitter fight about his lack of objectivity in calling out the lies of politicians, specifically President Joe Biden.
Just this week, The Federalist debuted a running list of Biden’s lies since he has taken office. The list mimics Kessler’s own fact-checking style, which was haphazardly applied to former President Donald Trump and his administration for four years. Stephen Miller, a popular conservative commentator and podcast host, also began keeping a list.
Kessler, however, was not flattered by these new lie trackers. Instead, he took to Twitter to educate the public about how to issue a “good” Pinocchio.
“The best fact checks are pinned on a number, uttered by a politician,” Kessler began. “We then use that number to dig into policy issues. The last president was rather loquacious, speaking or tweeting without any prior fact-checking, and much of it was not worth detailed fact-checking.”
The best fact checks are pinned on a number, uttered by a politician. We then use that number to dig into policy issues. The last president was rather loquacious, speaking or tweeting without any prior fact checking, and much of it was not worth detailed fact checking….
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 26, 2021
He continued to rattle off the requirements and criteria necessary for a fact-check.
“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,” Kessler continued.
Kessler’s claims, however, are flat-out false. A quick search on the Washington Post’s website shows the corporate media company had an obsession with attacking Trump’s first press secretary Sean Spicer and some of his previous statements and press briefings beginning just days after the inauguration.
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1354132232768729089?s=20
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1354135215988473857?s=20
Kessler’s fact-checking fixation on Trump’s press secretaries continued throughout Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kayleigh McEnany’s careers, when he went after them for standing by the president’s lies.
Despite Kessler’s insistence that the Washington Post had “no plans” to issue fact-checks of Trump at the beginning of his presidency, its website betrayed him, showing a Kessler fact-check article from Trump’s Inauguration Day in 2017.
“Generally, inaugural addresses are not designed to be fact-checked,” Kessler wrote four years ago. “Here’s a guide to understanding whether the facts back up his rhetoric.”
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1354120244827205632?s=20
When pressed by some to evaluate Biden’s complete lie about banning fracking, Kessler merely shrugged it off.
“[A]t this point I have not seen evidence he has changed his campaign position,” Kessler responded. “We base fact checks on actual policy statements, not headlines.”
So we are obviously keeping an eye on whether this changes. But at this point I have not seen evidence he has changed his campaign position. We base fact checks on actual policy statements, not headlines.
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 26, 2021
Even after he was faced with a Washington Post article headlined with a direct Biden quote on banning fracking, Kessler refused to admit he was wrong.
“Repeat: headlines do not equal policies. But play your games if you want! Always amusing,” he wrote.
I repeat: headlines do not equal policies. But play your games if you want! Always amusing.
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) January 26, 2021
"I will not ban fracking, period." is not a headline. It's an exact quote from Joe Biden, or do Joe Biden's words not constitute Joe Biden's administration now? What are the rules here? Help.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 26, 2021
Kessler has a long history of stretching his fact-checks to fit a political agenda. Some of Kessler’s most notable blunders include referring to eugenicist Margaret Sanger as a “racial pioneer,” claiming Herman Cain was wrong for saying terrorists have crossed at the southern border even though the U.S. Department of Justice says they have, or saying the 800,000 workers who were set to leave the workforce because of Obamacare were “basically a rounding error.”
