Lately, it seems like the job of fact checkers (those in the media who uncover wrong or false information) is taking a beating even from the mainstream press. On May 15, 2025, for example, The New York Post published an editorial criticizing Glenn Kessler’s column in The Washington Post, calling it “a propaganda mill.”
Three months later, James Tarantino wrote an Op-Ed piece in The Wall Street Journal (the NY Post‘s sister publication) arguing that “Fact check journalism is opinion journalism deceptively packaged as higher proof, a more authoritative formulation of straight news.”
However, if a politician publicly states that are 100 people in a room, while a video camera shows just a handful of attendees, is pointing out the discrepancy an “opinion”?
Tarantino, the Journal‘s editorial feature editor, directed his tirade to Glenn Kessler, who ran the recently dismissed “Fact Checker” column in The Washington Post, a Washington, D.C. daily since 2011. The 66-year-old Kessler, a former U.S. State Department reporter, then took his fact-checking feature to Substack, an online subscription-based platform.
In his Washington Post column, Kessler rated false statements with Pinocchios and truthful assertions with Geppettos. Even though Kessler assigned Pinocchios to both members of the Republican and Democratic parties, his column was very controversial, especially among conservatives.
Tarantino’s tirade didn’t include any examples of Kessler’s maleficence, but if he had, one might have been from Kessler’s June 16, 2025 column: “[Republican U.S. Senator from South Carolina] Tim Scott’s video attacking CBO [the Congressional Budget Office]: Nine errors in 60 seconds.”
But, Tarantino pointed out, by defending his fact-checking by arguing that the other two main American fact-checking features (FactCheck.org and Politi-Fact) reached the same conclusion he did 95 percent of the time, Kessler underplayed his assertion that “exclusive, compelling articles were the best way to attract readers.”
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