Former Washington Post colleagues Glenn Kessler and Jen Rubin reunited on August 4 on Rubin’s The Contrarian podcast to discuss Kessler’s departure from the Post’s Fact Checker page. During their conversation, Kessler would unleash three headscratchers: that he fact-checked Republicans more because they are in power, a historically incorrect warning about going back to the 19th century media model, and the claim that Democrats are the party disadvantaged by the current media landscape.
Rubin echoed the idea that Republicans are fact-checked more because they deserve it, “And when you say politicians, we're really talking about a sea change in the Republican Party. Democrat politicians are not always truthful, they exaggerate. Joe Biden had a few of these things that he just kept repeating over and over again, but really the sea change has been on the Republican side, hasn't it?”
Kessler agreed, “Yeah, I would say that's generally correct.”
However, he also tried to claim, “I always wrote, you know, ‘divided government is better for the Fact Checker,’… So, right now you have this situation where the Republicans control the White House, the House, the Senate. No one pays attention to whatever the Democrats are saying, so even if they're lying their pants off, it's, people don't, they don't really see it.”
That makes no sense on two levels. First, even when there was divided government in 2024, Kessler handed out 143 Pinocchios to Republicans and only 24 to Democrats. Second, Democrats may be out of power, but they want to regain power, so what they say matters.
Later in the show, Rubin wondered, “What’s the solution to the, you know, imbalance in truth-telling? Does the press just have to report it as it is and let the chips fall where they may? Do we need a different model of reporting, maybe going back to the 19th century when there used to be very opinionated papers? This notion of objectivity, you know, didn't really arise until the 20th century, people would be surprised to know. What's your solution to this conundrum?”
After a digression about AI, Kessler reached back 127 years and recalled, “It’s not like the news coverage was all that great in the 19th century. I mean, the US went to war against [Spain], you know, and seized Cuba—Cuba and the Philippines based on, you know, ginned-up fake news. You know, what's the, I don't know if this is made up in a movie or not… “You deliver the prose, I’ll deliver the war.’”
The actual line is “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” It may seem obscure, but the idea that yellow journalism is to blame for the Spanish-American War is the origin of today’s media’s Main Character Syndrome, and the desire to not repeat it is the origin of their pretensions about “speaking truth to power,” not being stenographers to power, and Kessler’s fact-checking operation.
The irony is that there’s no evidence it is true. In his book Getting It Wrong, journalism historian W. Joseph Campbell writes, “It lives on even though telegrams supposedly exchanged by [New York Journal illustrator Frederic] Remington and [owner William Randolph] Hearst have never turned up. It lives on even though Hearst denied ever sending such a message.”
Similarly, in his 1986 Pulitzer-nominated book, The Spanish War, G.J.A. O'Toole echoes that sentiment and adds, “The war, when it came, was furnished by forces more powerful than yellow journalism.”
For his part, Kessler rolled on, “The big problem I see right now is that everyone is in their own silos. It used to be you would get the newspaper, and… the news itself was generally pretty straight, but, and it forced you to look at, you know, everything, you know, everyone sat around and listened to Walter Cronkite at night or Huntley Brinkley, and there was like a common base of news.”
According to Kessler, this hurts Democrats because, unlike Republicans, they don’t have a media that will defend whatever their guy does, “The problem they face is an asymmetric news landscape because it struck me when the Afghan thing, the Afghan withdrawal, blew up in Biden’s face, and that's when Biden's opinion polls plummeted. What happened was you had the traditional media, like the CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, rail about how Biden had screwed this up, and you had the right-wing media also jumping on saying Biden had screwed up, so everywhere you looked, Biden screwed up because, in fact, he had.”
The media jumped on Biden over Afghanistan because that was a screw-up so bad, even they couldn’t spin that in a positive way. However, when it came to inflation or his pre-debate mental faculties, they were all about defending their guy all the way to the end.
Here is a transcript for the August 4 show:
The Contrarian
8/4/2025
JEN RUBIN: And when you say politicians, we're really talking about a sea change in the Republican Party. Democrat politicians are not always truthful, they exaggerate. Joe Biden had a few of these things that he just kept repeating over and over again, but really the sea change has been on the Republican side, hasn't it?
GLENN KESSLER: Yeah, I would say that's generally correct. And the problem I faced as Fact Checker— if you, there was a section of the fact checker called “about the Fact Checker,” and I always wrote, you know, “divided government is better for the Fact Checker,” because if the Democrats control one part of Congress, the statements they make are, are elevated and people pay attention to it. And you, ‘cause you want to write fact-checks about people in power. And you know, about important people and the people that are important are the people in power. So, right now you have this situation where the Republicans control the White House, the House, the Senate. No one pays attention to whatever the Democrats are saying, so even if they're lying their pants off, it's, people don't, they don't really see it, whereas they see the stuff that Trump says constantly every day, as well as in the House and Senate, so it makes it appear imbalanced, which is not something I ever hoped for as Fact Checker and, but it was definitely less imbalanced back when I started.
…
RUBIN: What’s the solution to the, you know, imbalance in truth-telling? Does the press just have to report it as it is and let the chips fall where they may? Do we need a different model of reporting, maybe going back to the 19th century when there used to be very opinionated papers? This notion of objectivity, you know, didn't really arise until the 20th century, people would be surprised to know. What's your solution to this conundrum?
KESSLER: Yeah, you know, I've been so steeped—decades of traditional news reporting, it's very difficult for me to venture into realm of opinion and, you know, I mean, I, you know, the whole traditional news environment is collapsing as we see—
RUBIN: Yes.
KESSLER: — and I don't even know what the beginning of what the, what the impact of AI will be. You know, there was an article, it annoyed me. There was an article in The Washington Post like “we fact check Donald Trump using AI” and all the examples they had were derived from my fact-checks or other fact-checkers, right? It was like, so yeah, AI—
RUBIN: You can sue them for plagiarism, the AI guy.
KESSLER: Well, I just, I sent a note to the person, the opinion editor and said, "Why don't you at least just acknowledge that they're borrowing from—
RUBIN: Yes, oh my goodness.
KESSLER: — fact checks." So, you know, and it's not like the news coverage was all that great in the 19th century. I mean—
RUBIN: Yes.
KESSLER: — the US went to war against, you know—
RUBIN: Spain.
KESSLER: — and seized Cuba—Cuba and the Philippines based on, you know, ginned-up fake news.
RUBIN: Right.
KESSLER: You know, what's the, I don't know if this is made up in a movie or not, but you know, you, you deliver, “You deliver the prose, I’ll deliver the war,” if you—
RUBIN: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
KESSLER: I don't think that's necessarily an option and the problem is—the big problem I see right now is that everyone is in their own silos. It used to be you would get the newspaper, and you could, you on the editorial page, there would be, you know, there might be a liberal opinion or conservative opinion. The news itself was generally pretty straight, but, and it forced you to look at, you know, everything, you know, everyone sat around and listened to Walter Cronkite at night or Huntley Brinkley, and there was like a common base of news. And now you are able to pick and choose who you follow on X or Bluesky. You're able to look at whatever news sites you want, and, you know, the, I think there's a, you know, right now there's a, you know, for, you know, for Democrats, I think there's the problem they face is an asymmetric news landscape because it struck me when the Afghan thing, the Afghan withdrawal, blew up in Biden’s face, and that's when Biden's opinion polls plummeted.
RUBIN: Yes.
KESSLER: What happened was you had the traditional media, like the CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, rail about how Biden had screwed this up, and you had the right-wing media also jumping on saying Biden had screwed up, so everywhere you looked, Biden screwed up because, in fact, he had.
