The Washington Post's 'Embarrassing' Fact-Check Shows Why 'Both Sides' Journalism Always Fails
Plus, Fox News not bothered by its anchor peddling an election lie, and a right-wing troll gets trolled.
The scourge of bothsidesism that ushered in President Donald Trump in 2016 continues to plague the mainstream media, if this week is any indication. Addicted to horse-race election coverage, the political press just can’t stop looking for ways to give Trump every single benefit of the doubt, all in an effort to create some supposed level playing field.
Case in point – check out the so-called fact-checkers.
The Washington Post issued a correction on Tuesday after resident fact-checker Glenn Kessler drew a deluge of backlash for insisting there was “no evidence that Trump sent” so-called “love letters” to foreign dictators. Tasked with fact-checking Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention, Kessler’s initial claim came in response to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech in which she said Vice President Kamala Harris “won’t be sending love letters to dictators.”
Clinton’s remarks were an obvious nod to Trump’s repeated boasts about his friendship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, which included him saying, “We fell in love,” and that Kim “wrote me beautiful letters.” Kessler, however, initially wrote that Clinton was “making a bit of a leap to suggest that Trump has written ‘love letters’ to dictators,” adding that we “do not know what Trump wrote to Kim” or other leaders.
Critics soon took issue with Kessler’s fact-check, calling it “embarrassing” since it is absolutely known what Trump wrote to the brutal North Korean ruler. In fact, Kessler’s own Washington Post colleague, Bob Woodward, gained access to the Trump-Kim letters and wrote about them in his 2020 book. Foreign Policy further reported on the letters in 2021.
Amid the continued outcry, WaPo amended Kessler’s article on Tuesday afternoon and added the following editor’s note:
“A previous version of this article incorrectly said that the contents of Donald Trump’s letters to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were not known. Parts of the letters were revealed in a 2020 book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward, after Trump permitted him to read the letters into his tape recorder at the White House. This article has been corrected.”
Still, it wasn’t the only fact-check from a Post journalist that drew heavy criticism. Reporter Amy Gardner, who worked on the Post’s Pulitzer-winning Jan. 6 reporting, took issue with President Joe Biden noting at the DNC that Trump “says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again.” According to Gardner, this is “not true” because the former president “just hasn’t said that he would accept” while adding that “the only way he loses is if the Democrats cheat.”
Media critic Parker Molloy called it “the worst” type of fact-check, noting that it “does a disservice to readers by obscuring the more significant truth behind a veneer of technical accuracy.”
Political science professor Mark Copelovitch added on social media: “It is not healthy for our democracy that a large swathe of our political media has totally, completely, & utterly lost the plot.”
The Post isn’t the only one whose fact-checkers have found ways to apply this double standard, which provides Trump a wide berth to mislead and lie while pedantically dinging Democrats for taking the truth-averse former president at his word.
During Biden’s speech on Monday night, PolitiFact re-upped a fact-check saying it was “mostly false” that Trump wants to cut Medicare, even though the site outright admitted that Trump repeatedly proposed annual budgets as president to do that very thing. “[I'm] not one to bemoan fact checkers. truly. but what are we doing here?” the Bulwark’s Sam Stein posted on social media in response.
What indeed.
She Can’t Help Herself
Another day, another nutty Maria Bartiromo conspiracy theory that shows yet again Fox’s willingness to tolerate her dangerous rhetoric in service of Trump,
Over the weekend, the MAGA-boosting Fox Business anchor once again accepted a third-hand claim in order to accuse Democrats of engaging in a vast election fraud scheme. This time around, rather than entrust a woman who believes she’s a “ghost,” Bartiromo instead turned to the spouse of a friend of a friend to assert that massive swaths of immigrants are illegally registering to vote in Texas.
In a Sunday morning tweet that’s racked up more than 2 million views, Bartiromo wrote:
“From a friend ...
Friend of mine’s wife had to take her 16 yr old son to the DMV this week for a new license. Couldn’t get an online appointment(all full) so went in person and had to go to 3 DMV’s to get something done. First DMV was in Weatherford. Had a massive line of immigrants getting licenses and had a tent and table outside the front door of the DMV registering them to vote! Second one was in Fort Worth with same lines and same Dems out front. Third one was in North Fort Worth had no lines but had same voter registration drive.”
Bartiromo went on to repeatedly mention it on Fox airwaves during interviews with GOP lawmakers, including Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Roger Marshall of Kansas, and law enforcement officers this week. During these on-air segments, the Fox star expanded on the story, claiming that these weren’t just “immigrants” but also “illegals,” playing directly into the racist “great replacement” theory that the GOP has embraced in recent years.
Besides changing the details of the text to include illegal immigrants, Bartiromo also claimed on air in an interview with Johnson on Monday that it was her friend who had personally seen this, rather than the “wife of a friend” relaying the story to her pal.
“So, what is going on in terms of illegals voting in this election?” Bartiromo asked Johnson, who said, “Democrats want to make it easy to cheat” because “they want to change the electorate.”
Though Bartiromo made no apparent effort to confirm whether the story was true or not, a local GOP chair and newspaper both investigated the claim and found it to be completely bogus. “None of it is true,” Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Sgt. William Lockridge told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, adding that the suggestion that non-white Texans obtaining their licenses at the DMV are illegal immigrants is itself “kind of racist.”
Additionally, Parker County GOP chairman Brady Gray tweeted on Monday night that Bartiromo's allegations were “erroneous.” He added that there had been only two instances of ineligible voters registering in the county in the past 15 years.
As of now, Bartiromo has yet to issue any corrections or updates. It’s also been indicated that the host was merely citing a source and that she never said the story had been confirmed. Additionally, Bartiromo’s tip from her friend’s friend’s wife comes as Republicans have become increasingly focused on the issue of noncitizens voting in recent months, and the New York Times recently published a story about how immigrants are becoming US citizens at the fastest rate in years.
Needless to say, Bartiromo didn’t address her “kind of racist” thirdhand gossip being debunked on Wednesday morning’s broadcast of ‘Mornings with Maria.’
The right-wing network shrugging off Bartiromo’s irresponsible and shoddy journalism in the service of MAGA propaganda shouldn’t come across as all that surprising. I mean, her 2020 election lies are a large reason why the Murdochs had to shell out nearly a billion dollars to settle Dominion’s defamation case, and she’s directly named in another hefty lawsuit, yet she is still employed as a morning host.
In fact, she’s faced no repercussions for costing Fox both money and reputational damage, and has seen her standing with the network remain firm. If anything, the message Bartiromo is receiving from Fox is clear – go ahead and do what you want. Even, or especially, if that means helping Trump try to overthrow another election.
Meanwhile, it appears that Republicans are already taking action based on Bartiromo’s already-debunked claim. On Wednesday afternoon, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – a chief purveyor of the “Great Replacement” theory – announced he is “launching an investigation into reports that organizations in Texas are illegally registering non-citizens to vote.”
Trolling the Troll
Professional MAGA antagonist Jack Posobiec got more than he bargained for when he tried to go undercover during a rally outside the DNC on Monday. Prior to thousands of protesters taking to the streets to call for the end of the war in Gaza, Posobiec donned a Palestinian keffiyeh and walked through Union Park with a camera crew hoping to troll leftists for his alt-right ‘Human Events’ show.
In the end, though, it was the troll who was trolled.
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