After Raving Over the Return to Truthfulness Media Fact-Checkers are Struggling in the Biden Era

Townhall.com ^ | January 28, 2019 | Brad Slager

[Kaslin]

To suggest the media has been exhibiting a distinct tremulous excitement upon the arrival of Joe Biden’s administration is to traffic in understatement. These arrested adolescents have been singing the praises of a new era in truth and respect for the media...all while lying consistently and behaving in disrespectful fashion. What has become quickly evident is that as they are shouting praise for a new adherence to the facts those who are struggling with a Biden arrival are the media fact-checkers.

The past 4 years had been scintillating for these referees of verite’. They had a bumper crop of material from Donald Trump and no shortage of umbrage to deliver their corrective missives. Notepads and scorn were ordered in bulk as they worked feverishly to keep the vile leader in the White House in check, but now what are they to do? They have a President in Biden they favor, and therefore do not want to display as dealing in altered states of truth. They are arrested from enforcing their own stated goal.

For a perfect display of this conflict we need only look at the flailing from Glenn Kessler. If unfamiliar, Kessler runs the Fact Checker at The Washington Post, and he has not appeared to be as giddy as his journalistic brethren with Biden’s arrival. For starters, last Wednesday as the media were aglow in beatific harmony Glenn was otherwise occupied; he spent the bulk of that inaugural day tweeting about Donald Trump. Over a dozen times he referenced the man on the day most were claiming they were happy to be rid of him.

The ensuing days were rather tough on Glenn. It began last Monday when, not unlike a movie trailer, Kessler teased his hands-off approach to the administration by declaring that newly appointed White House press secretary Jen Psaki was going to be delivering ‘’reality-grounded press briefings’’. Nothing like a fact checker announcing his findings on an individual’s performance before they even begin their job. (That Psaki managed to display challenges to his claim in the matter of two days is a bonus.)

With his declared permissive attitude established Glenn struggled to justify not reporting on Biden’s battle with the truth on a number of issues, in just his first week in office. We can start with the announced executive orders regarding travel. Biden first reinstituted restrictions on travel from Europe, which President Trump recently rescinded, and then President Biden added in South African restrictions as well, all in the name of Covid safety. These, of course, draw up memories of Biden referring to Trump’s actions as ‘’xenophobic’’ early last year, when he first instituted bans from China.

Then to compound the confusion, as he was banning travel from most countries Biden opened up travel from those listed in the misnamed ‘’Muslim travel ban’’. A purely political maneuver that defies logic, this means Biden was placing bans which he previously criticized while at the same time taking down other bans, despite claiming a need for safety. So has Kessler & Co. at The Post weighed in on any of these contradictions? Nope, they have quietly backed away from any corrections.

However Glenn did weigh in on another issue, the Keystone oil pipeline closure. He felt the need to fact check Senator Ted Cruz on his claim on how many jobs were being eliminated by halting the construction of the pipeline. Glenn found a curious qualifier in order to criticize the contention made by Cruz.

• The Pinocchio Test  Cruz cited a real estimate of approximately 11,000 jobs, but he left out that they were all temporary. In the same report, the State Department said the Keystone XL pipeline, if built, would require only 35 to 50 permanent positions. The missing context is key here, obscuring half the story. Cruz earns Two Pinocchios.

Accurate, but untruthful? This means that in order to dispute the 11,000 jobs figure we need to declare that temporary construction jobs do not count. That seems handy...and arbitrary. As Cruz noted, in a response to Kessler’s claim, ‘’ALL construction jobs are temporary. Presidents still shouldn’t destroy them.’’ Then, to make his summation even worse, Kessler was also disproving another source on the Keystone jobs -- Himself.

Glenn had previously provided a fact-check on Keystone work years earlier, asserting that only 16,000 jobs would be created. Now it seems Glenn is himself in need of a fact-check; this is not something that should be left to him, it is safe to say.

Compounding his reputable challenges, Glenn next attempted to appear diligent in covering Joe Biden’s ever-shifting stance on fracking. Considering Joe has been all over the map on the issue a fact-check was certainly needed. Instead, Kessler endeavored to defend Biden, a dicey proposition since whatever stance is taken is assured to be disputed by a previous stance. 

One of Biden’s other executive orders was to halt licensing for fracking on Federal lands. He has declared during the Democratic debates that he would eliminate fracking, then on the presidential campaign - when in need of votes - he backtracked to say he supported the drilling. Now he tries to split the difference, banning some fracking, allowing existing fracking, and upsetting people on both sides of the issue in the process.

When he was called out by Stephen Miller for not addressing Biden’s lie that he would not ban fracking, Kessler attempted to elide responsibility. Instead of looking over Biden’s ever shifting stances. ‘’In the campaign, Biden said he would not approve new fracking permits on federal lands.In the campaign, Biden said he would not approve new fracking permits on federal lands.’’ This means since it is only a partial ban Biden’s claim of not banning fracking is not a lie...we guess.

>Miller had a firm rebuttal -- from The Washington Post.

Here's The Washington Post disagreeing with you. Fact check! pic.twitter.com/1YxyrXtGrN— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 26, 2021

Kessler thought he had a solid retort: ‘’I repeat: headlines do not equal policies. But play your games if you want! Always amusing.’’ Bypassing that the headline derives from his own paper, Glenn manages to overlook a basic (dare I say it) fact -- the quotation marks in the headline indicate they are Biden’s own words. Glenn’s apparent standard here is that he does not fact-check headlines, so if the quote appears above the article then he is above looking into the matter.

As if he was trying to defy his own practice of fact checking, Kessler practically dared people to correct him on a general claim. As he continued explaining himself Glenn stated that he had no foreseeable plans to begin a Biden lie tracker, and then managed to jump on a rake with 2 feet. ‘’We had no plans at this point to start a Trump tracker. The constant tweeting of falsehoods forced our hand.’’ To put this statement into a perspective he might grasp, you can rate this comment with 5 Pinocchios. 

This is a laughably false comment by WaPo's ''fact-checker''.
Kessler and his crew were tabulating Donald Trump's lies on the day he was sworn in, correcting statements from his inaugural address. Last week he even stated he began tracking lies on Trump's first 100 days. https://t.co/1G5knM2KwP pic.twitter.com/2B9sxHuAbY— Brad Slager - In An Augur Roll (@MartiniShark) January 27, 2021

Get ready folks. This is the current state of journalism. They have shifted from 4 years of obnoxious behavior to now proudly engaging in malpractice and gaslighting.

[SmokingJoe]

There are no media “fact checkers”.
There are only fake news liars, purveyors of disinformation and Dem Party hacks.

[allendale]

The MSM moved beyond bias and into open collusion with the globalist Democrats. Try to imagine the MSM as little as thirty years ago not reporting on or investigating the Hunter Biden hard drive. They and their “fact checkers” are nothing more than vile , deceiving propagandists who will do all they can to prop up and sanitize the demented corrupt Biden and his controllers. No rational,decent person can ever trust the MSM.

[Mouton]

Fact Checkers. For those old enough to recall the abbott and costello scene wherein Lou is boxing some guy and the ref is on the side of lou’s opponent.

[HighSierra5]

They can’t handle the truth.

[brownsfan]

“There are no media “fact checkers”.
There are only fake news liars, purveyors of disinformation and Dem Party hacks.”

The problem is, Americans give the Washington Post’s fact checker an unearned level of authority. Americans are stupid.

[ClearCase_guy]

“Fact checking” seems to primarily consist of calling Republicans liars.

[LouAvul]

Baloney. All left wing media employees are mere pimps, whores and facilitators of the fat, wrinkled and dying billionaires (who own all left wing media outlets).

Hey! Media whores! You're struggling with your conscience! What you've done is wrong, viz. lie and conceal truth to promote a nefarious agenda!

[Yo-Yo]

Here's an example of how 'fact checkers' are struggling to put Biden's detrimental actions in the best possible light:

Fact Checks > Politics

Did Biden Temporarily Freeze Trump Rule Lowering Insulin, EpiPen Prices?

In his first week on the job, President Joe Biden issued more than a dozen executive orders.

Madison Dapcevich
Published 25 January 2021

Claim

In the first days of his 2021 term, U.S. President Joe Biden temporarily froze a federal rule initiated by former President Donald Trump aimed at lowering insulin and EpiPen prices.

Rating

True

Origin

In the first few days of his 2021 term, U.S. President Joe Biden was quick to issue nearly a dozen executive orders aimed at reversing many of the policies of former President Donald Trump, from rejoining the World Health Organization to recommitting the U.S. to the Paris climate accord. And, as the 46th president took pen to paper, he required that all federal rules pending review that were submitted under the previous administration be frozen for at 60 days — among them, one aimed at reducing the cost of insulin and EpiPens.

It is important to note that the freeze is temporary. Headlines run by some conservative-leaning news publications — such as The Federalist and The National Law Review — made the freeze appear to be a more permanent change, which remains to be determined.

On Jan. 20, 2021, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff Ronald Klain announced that any rules published in the Federal Register that had not yet taken effect would be postponed for the following 60 days to allow the new administration the opportunity to review “any questions of fact, law, and policy the rules may arise.”

Considered the official daily “newspaper” of the federal government, the Office of the Federal Register, under the National Archives and Records Administration, publishes proposed rules and regulations — including executive orders — to allow the public an opportunity to review and comment on them. Executive orders such as the one in question are published in the Federal Register to explain how the president has instructed various executive agencies on how to manage operations.

In July 2020, Trump signed a series of executive orders that he posited served as an end-all solution for lowering high premium prices of prescription drugs — including the price of insulin, which he claimed would “come down to just pennies a day.” Under the Executive Order on Access to Affordable Life-Saving Medications, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was required to make changes aimed at lowering the cost of EpiPens, or injectable epinephrine, for Americans with severe allergies and the cost of insulin for those diagnosed with diabetes.

An important caveat to note is that Executive Order 13937, issued by Trump, had not yet been put into law. Though it was published in the federal register on Dec. 23, 2020, the order was not scheduled to go into effect until Jan. 22, 2021 — two days after Biden issued a freeze on all rules made by Trump that were not yet in effect.

At the time of writing, the Biden administration has not commented on whether it intends to pass the order into law. According to a statement issued by HHS, the freeze will be in place until March 22, 2021.

[Liz]

The obeisant media defends Joe Biden’s ever-shifting stance on fracking ......
but Biden's meanderings need a fact-check b/c whatever stance Beijing Biden
takes is sure to be disputed by his assortment of previous stances.

THE SHIFTING COGS OF BIDEN'S STUNTED MINDSET
<><> In Democratic debates Biden said he would "eliminate" fracking,
<><> On the campaign trail in search of votes he said he "supported" the drilling.

Now in office, Biden's plastic mind tries to split the difference, upsetting people on both sides of the issue:
<><> banning some fracking,
<><> allowing existing fracking.

====================================================

One of Biden's 40 executive orders (to date) halted licensing for fracking on Federal lands complicated
by the fact that on Oct 2020, candidate Biden told ABC-TV: “Only Dictators Legislate Through Executive Orders.
We are a democracy. We need consensus.”

EASILY EXPLAINED (/s). It's The Three Faces of Biden

REALITY CHECK: Biden's mother forced him to kiss his dead grandmother which resulted in Biden's blinding headaches, occasional blackouts and dissociative identity disorder (AKA multiple personalities) each with a different vote-driven personality. Biden's persona include:
<><> A timid, unconfrontational Mr Peepers-type for kindly lefties.
<><> In the Oval Office w/ a pen in his hand, he becomes Ivan The Terrible towards Trump supporters.
<><> In a family setting, he's the kindly, understanding "Uncle Joe" selling govt policy and doling out govt jobs 24/7.

[kickstart]

Demonrats only believe in their truth.

[antidemoncrat]

“After Raving Over the Return to Truthfulness Media Fact-Checkers are Struggling in the Biden Era”

They solved that problem. They did away with fact checking Biden and kept the ones fact checking ex-President Trump.

[wjcsux]

Later