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Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post Fact Checker, Was Especially Busy Last Year. As a Pioneer of the Journalism Trend of Checking

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Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post Fact Checker, Was Especially Busy Last Year. As a Pioneer of the Journalism Trend of Checking JUST THE FACTSGlenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact checker, was especially busy last year. As a pioneer of the journalism trend of checking the facts behind the words of prominent people, he and his team have been awarding “Pinocchios” at a rapid rate. But in a time of “alternative facts” and “fake news” does anyone still care? BY STEPHANIE GRACE ’87 22 brown alumni magazine jan/feb 2018 Photographs by Stephen Voss jan/feb 2018 brown alumni magazine 23 “ My goal with the Fact Checker,” Kessler says, “is, if you are a regular reader of it, you’ll come away with a better under- standing of the complexities of policymaking in the United States.” hen Glenn Kessler ’81 unpack code words and to provide back- he became president, an average of mala Harris, Obama national security presidential election. “Presidential can- voters.” An even bigger boost came in heard then-candi- ground and context. Not every topic he 5.6 per day. (The deceptive statements adviser Susan Rice, and Democratic didates love nothing more than to flood December 2016, when Facebook, under date Donald Trump tackles is as straightforward as Trump’s the president has repeated more often National Committee Chairman Tom the airwaves with a veritable blizzard of fire for the amount of fake news content vow to save the Medi- Medicare claim and not every analysis than any other during his first year in Perez ’83, who got dinged for falsely facts,” Kessler wrote at the time, “each posted to the site in an attempt to influ- care program $300 is so clear cut. The Fact Checker’s call- the White House, according to Kes- claiming “tax benefits for colleges and carefully constructed to present their ence the election, announced it would billion on prescrip- ing card is a rating system based on sler, are that Obamacare is a “disaster” students were killed to give a tax break case in the best possible light. The prob- give fact-checking sites more promi- Wtion drugs in February 2016, he knew “Pinocchios;” a subject can earn from and “virtually dead” and that many to private jet owners.” lem is, many of these facts are suspect. nence in its news feeds. he had his day’s work set. Not only was one to four of them, depending on how private business decisions about plant “My goal with the Fact Checker,” They usually contain a grain of reality, Of course, checking facts is not as this yet another far-fetched claim in inaccurate or misleading the statement locations and increased hiring were Kessler says, “is, if you are a regular but many are also exaggerated, out- simple as it sounds. Certifying the ac- what had already become a string of may be, with four being a “whopper.” essentially his doing.) When the Fact reader of it, you’ll come away with a bet- landish, or just plain wrong.” curacy or inaccuracy of numbers is fair- them; it was a number. To Kessler, the More rarely, the column grants a Gep- Checker put together its annual list of ter understanding of the complexities Since then, three nonpartisan fact- ly straightforward, but checking the man behind the Washington Post’s Fact petto checkmark, meaning the claim the biggest Pinocchios of 2017, six of of policymaking in the United States, checking operations—Kessler’s Fact accuracy of vaguer assertions—“I just Checker feature, a number is red meat, contains “the truth, the whole truth and the 11 were Trump statements. a better understanding of immigration Checker, PolitiFact, and Factcheck. found out Obama wiretapped me”— a quantifiable place to start. nothing but the truth.” The rating sys- Kessler and two colleagues post fact policy, of foreign policy, of tax policy, org—have dominated, but Kessler is trickier. That’s why Kessler doesn’t “So the first question is, how much tem carries a hint of whimsy—as does checks on the Washington Post website health care policy.” estimates at least 120 fact-checking stop at rating statements; he tries to does Medicare spend on prescription the collection of Pinocchio memora- at least once every weekday and run groups are now working around the track down their origin and explain in drugs,” Kessler says. “And the answer bilia Kessler keeps on his desk—but the the most notable of the week in the hecking the accuracy of world. “I’ve said that man has been detail how they were interpreted or ex- was $78 billion. The whole thing was mission is sober-minded. Sunday paper. Among the innovations information bound for spreading ‘fake news’ since he learned aggerated. Brookings Institution vice wildly absurd.” In the Fact Checker Kessler and his colleagues are ex- he’s launched is the database of the print is nothing new. Fact to talk,” Kessler says. “What’s different president and scholar Darrell West, a piece he wrote that day, he noted that periencing a fact-checking boom. So- president’s falsehoods, which Kessler checking at magazines now is that falsehoods can travel faster former political science professor at Trump was effectively promising to cial media bubbles, “fake news,” and describes as a response to the fact that, and some newspapers re- than in the past. Now someone can Brown, who recently authored a Brook- turn water into wine. “alternative facts” have made it more unlike previous presidents, Trump is a ally began in the early 20th post something on a Facebook page ings paper on combating fake news, Kessler’s job is to scrutinize asser- difficult than ever for the average citi- “constant communicator” who repeats Ccentury after the yellow journalism of that’s utterly false and lots of people says providing this type of background tions made by the people who seek to zen to have confidence in the informa- his false claims even after he’s been the late 19th century and the muckrak- will see it. That’s something that the helps readers judge the information for make and implement policy and the tion at hand. Trump’s statements, on corrected. “You have a president who ing journalism of the early 1900s. This Russians exploited [during the 2016 themselves: “Sure, there’s a subjective lobbyists and influence groups who try and off Twitter, can often use a good doesn’t seem to care that much about kind of fact checking, however, focused presidential election].” element to fact checking, but there are to sway them. In a sign of the times, fact checking, for example, so it’s not sticking to the facts,” Kessler notes, on finding errors before statements got Fact checking received crucial pro- concrete realities, there are impartial even the occasional late-night come- surprising that he’s collected a dis- “so he says things repeatedly that are into print or on air. What’s new in re- fessional recognition in 2009, when sources of information. It’s not all in dian comes under Kessler’s watchful proportionate number of Pinocchios. false and misleading. It’s not unusual cent decades is scrutinizing statements PolitiFact won the Pulitzer Prize for Na- the eye of the beholder.” eye. As he writes on the Fact Checker After a December 28 interview with that presidents would try to mislead by politicians for accuracy after they tional Reporting; the Pulitzer board cit- But given the attitude of the public website, the goal is “to ‘truth squad’ Trump for the New York Times, Kessler the American public. What is unusual have been printed or spoken. That kind ed its work “probing reporters and the toward journalists in recent years, not the statements of public figures re- tallied 24 “false or misleading claims.” is the scale.” But Kessler’s roving eye is of checking has been most common power of the World Wide Web to exam- everyone trusts fact checkers, who are garding issues of great importance, be As of early January, the Fact Checker bipartisan, and so also on the 2017 list during presidential campaigns and ine more than 750 political claims, sepa- sometimes accused of leaning left. In they national, international, or local;” to database listed 1,950 such claims since were Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator Ka- reached a new level during the 2008 rating rhetoric from truth to enlighten his recent paper, West refers to a Gallup 24 brown alumni magazine jan/feb 2018 jan/feb 2018 brown alumni magazine 25 Kessler estimates at least 120 fact- checking groups are now working around the world: “ I’ve said that man has been spreading ‘ fake news’ since he learned to talk.” Poll that found the percentage of Amer- claim, and instead be more willing the stupidest claims made so far in this icans who say they have a great deal or to try to get at the underlying truth,” campaign.” In fact, Trump has earned fair amount of trust in media dropped Graves says. “As a whole it’s a very posi- so many Pinocchios that after award- from 53 percent in 1997 to 32 percent tive development. Of course it’s contro- ing him a Geppetto for a statement in 2016. Lucas Graves, an assistant versial at a time when people have very about the number of police officers shot journalism professor at the University low confidence in the press.” and killed in the line of duty, a topic on of Wisconsin and the author of Decid- One way Kessler tries to steer clear which he’d previously been mislead- ing What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact- of the partisan battlefield is to stick to ing, Kessler and his staff wondered Checking in American Journalism, points the statement at hand without judg- whether they’d unconsciously graded out that even the most meticulous fact ing the motive of the individual being on a curve.
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