The article tried to convince readers that murders in DC are not a problem, but if you do the math you have a 2 to 3 percent lifetime risk of being murdered in DC, surely a preventable cause of death. An in arguing that DC is not so bad, the article compares to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Cape Town, South Africa, Kingston, Jamaica, Caracas, Venezuela, and Guatemala City, not places I'd want to live or even visit. The article also tries to dismiss the effect of super lenient treatment of youthful offenders, claiming that any relation of this to roving bands of criminal teenagers is “a matter of opinion”.
Yeah, 3000 “correct” fact checks. But one of the most important facts he mis-checked was the true Covid lab leak. That had consequences. What if, at the beginning of 1939 WAPO fact checkers had confirmed that Germany was not planning to invade Poland? And now, WAPO deliberately gets the Gaza story wrong and prints misinformation and Hamas propaganda as truth. Where are the FACT checkers? Sitting in tunnels eating Hummus and Techina?
There is a collection of such examples in the 2021 book "The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times's Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History"
But as you mention, more examples have occurred since that book was written.
I didn’t mean to push “send” (Stalinist-engineered) famine in the Ukraine. Then the big pic of the baby with a neurological and blood disease -not starvation- that it splashed across page 1, cropping out the pic of the child’s well-fed brother standing nearby, and publishing a 3,000 word essay accusing Israel of genocide by a far Left professor who joins other professors and “artists” who hate Israel’s democratically-elected Rightest government so much that they will spread Hamas propaganda. 3000+ words - not 750! That’s not an op-ed. That’s editorial propaganda against the only civilized nation in the Middle East.
I've been reading you for 30+ years, Mr. Stoll, and have great respect for your journalism. Kessler, OTOH, is a partisan hack, and I have no more interest in his observations than I would if you'd interviewed Paul Krugman. So I'll pass on this conversation. Kessler long ago forfeited my respect.
Sometimes a fact checking article can be so wrong that the reader can easily figure that out from the "fact check".
One example was in the NYT this week: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/us/politics/trump-dc-crime-data-fact-check.html
The article tried to convince readers that murders in DC are not a problem, but if you do the math you have a 2 to 3 percent lifetime risk of being murdered in DC, surely a preventable cause of death. An in arguing that DC is not so bad, the article compares to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Cape Town, South Africa, Kingston, Jamaica, Caracas, Venezuela, and Guatemala City, not places I'd want to live or even visit. The article also tries to dismiss the effect of super lenient treatment of youthful offenders, claiming that any relation of this to roving bands of criminal teenagers is “a matter of opinion”.
As James Taranto details, "‘Fact Check’? That’s Just Your Opinion, Man": https://www.wsj.com/opinion/fact-check-thats-just-your-opinion-man-kessler-taranto-e5b3323d?st=Rb3Puh&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Yeah, 3000 “correct” fact checks. But one of the most important facts he mis-checked was the true Covid lab leak. That had consequences. What if, at the beginning of 1939 WAPO fact checkers had confirmed that Germany was not planning to invade Poland? And now, WAPO deliberately gets the Gaza story wrong and prints misinformation and Hamas propaganda as truth. Where are the FACT checkers? Sitting in tunnels eating Hummus and Techina?
There is a collection of such examples in the 2021 book "The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times's Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History"
But as you mention, more examples have occurred since that book was written.
Let’s recall the NYT’s Walter Duranty reporting from the Ukraine that there was no Stalinist-engineered
I didn’t mean to push “send” (Stalinist-engineered) famine in the Ukraine. Then the big pic of the baby with a neurological and blood disease -not starvation- that it splashed across page 1, cropping out the pic of the child’s well-fed brother standing nearby, and publishing a 3,000 word essay accusing Israel of genocide by a far Left professor who joins other professors and “artists” who hate Israel’s democratically-elected Rightest government so much that they will spread Hamas propaganda. 3000+ words - not 750! That’s not an op-ed. That’s editorial propaganda against the only civilized nation in the Middle East.
I've been reading you for 30+ years, Mr. Stoll, and have great respect for your journalism. Kessler, OTOH, is a partisan hack, and I have no more interest in his observations than I would if you'd interviewed Paul Krugman. So I'll pass on this conversation. Kessler long ago forfeited my respect.