The Washington Post Fact Checker

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The Washington Post Fact Checker
Basic facts
Location:	Washington, D.C.
Type:	News Media
Top official:	Glenn Kessler, columnist
Founder(s):	Michael Dobbs
Year founded:	2007
Website:	Official website

The Washington Post Fact Checker is a fact-checking project of The Washington Post that began in 2007. Glenn Kessler, the project's chief writer, wrote that "The purpose of this Web site, and an accompanying column in the Sunday print edition of The Washington Post, is to 'truth squad' the statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance, be they national, international or local." The Fact Checker's tagline is "The Truth Behind the Rhetoric."

Background

The Washington Post Fact Checker began as a temporary project aimed at fact-checking the 2008 presidential campaign. Veteran reporter Michael Dobbs served as the Post’s Fact Checker columnist during its first temporary run. Dobbs started the column's use of its "Pinocchios" rating scale in September 2007. Statements ruled misleading receive one to four Pinocchios, with more misleading claims receiving the most Pinocchios.

When the Post brought back the Fact Checker as permanent feature in 2010, Glenn Kessler, another veteran reporter, got the job. Under Kessler, the Fact Checker column expanded its mission to general political fact-checking. It also started rating whether candidates had flip-flopped on an issue, marking those events with an upside-down Pinocchio image.

Fact Checker stories are published on the web and in a Fact Checker column in the Sunday print edition of the Post. As a part of The Washington Post newspaper, it receives its funding through ad and subscription revenue.

The Post added writer Michelle Ye Hee Lee to the staff in late 2014.

The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com.

Staff

• Glen Kessler
• Michelle Ye Hee Lee

Methodology

Glenn Kessler provided a brief overview of The Washington Post Fact Checker's mission, methodology, principles and scoring system in an "About the Fact Checker" article published in September 2013. Outside sources and interviews with Kessler provide additional information.

Selection process

The purpose of The Washington Post's Fact Checker column, Kessler wrote, is "to 'truth squad' the statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance, be they national, international or local." Political figures, in this case, include elected and non-elected government officials and "political candidates, interest groups, and the media."

The column places a heavy emphasis on the role of readers in selecting claims to fact check. Kessler said, "It's a big world out there, and so we will rely on readers to ask questions and point out statements that need to be checked." He added, "the success of this project depends, to a great extent, on the involvement of you—the reader. We will rely on our readers to send us suggestions on topics to fact check and tips on erroneous claims."

He also included a series of principles for the Post's Fact Checker. The principles that shed light on his claim-selection process are included below:

“

This is a fact-checking operation, not an opinion-checking operation. We are interested only in verifiable facts, though on occasion we may examine the roots of political rhetoric. We will focus our attention and resources on the issues that are most important to voters. We cannot nitpick every detail of every speech. We will strive to be dispassionate and non-partisan, drawing attention to inaccurate statements on both left and right.

”

Research methods

Similar to its counterparts, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org, the Post's Fact Checker reaches out to the individual or organization responsible for a claim and uses raw data and original sources to examine it. Kessler said that Google searches can be effective tools for investigation, telling Lucas Graves in an interview in 2012, "When I encounter a weird [or] strange fact, one of the first things I do is google the figures, which is an amazingly efficient way to figure out where it comes from."

Unlike his counterparts, however, Kessler said he prefers not to consult subject experts, even for assistance with interpreting complex data. "I'm the kind of reporter who is reasonably confident in his judgments. I like to speak with my voice, because I have actually covered just about everything in Washington... You can see my bio, you can see what I’ve covered. I bring a unique perspective of having listened to bull***t in Washington for 30 years," he told Graves in an interview.

In contrast to PolitiFact and FactCheck.org, the Post's Fact Checker will, in some cases, cite anonymous sources.

Claim evaluation

The Post's Fact Checker's approach to evaluating the veracity of a claim, Kessler says, centers on a "'reasonable man' standard for reaching conclusions. We do not demand 100 percent proof."

Like PolitiFact, the Post's Fact Checker uses a rating system. It is based on Pinocchio, the title character of the children's story, whose nose grew longer with each lie he told. For false claims, it assigns up to four Pinocchios to a statement depending on how untrue the claim is determined to be. Kessler provides a guide to the Pinocchio system in his "About the Fact Checker" article. It can be seen below.

A Pinocchio head

• One Pinocchio: "Some shading of the facts. Selective telling of the truth. Some omissions and exaggerations, but no outright falsehoods. (You could view this as 'mostly true.')"

• Two Pinocchios: "Significant omissions and/or exaggerations. Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people."

• Three Pinocchios: "Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions."

• Four Pinocchios: "Whoppers."

An additional factor that the Post's Fact Checker uses for assigning Pinocchios is whether or not a claim has been previously debunked. Kessler writes, "Repeated misstatements of previously debunked statistics can, over time, result in higher Pinocchio ratings for a particular claim. In other words, we may hold a politician to a higher standard if he or she already has been put on notice that a certain 'fact' is dubious."

For claims that turn out to be true, the Post's Fact Checker awards a Geppetto check mark, a reference to Pinocchio's father/creator who had a reputation for telling the truth. They also use an upside down Pinocchio head for "flip-flops" and a scales of justice symbol for claims that are too difficult to verify or require more time and/or data.

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'Washington Post Fact Checker' OR 'Glenn Kessler'. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

The Washington Post Fact Checker - Google News

See also

• PolitiFact
• FactCheck.org
• Glenn Kessler

External links

• The Washington Post Fact Checker