Emails Raise Questions About WashPost Fact Checker (10yo rape victim abortion)

[Nevilledog]

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Jessica Valenti
@JessicaValenti
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When WaPo's factchecker sowed doubts about a 10 yr-old girl who had been raped & impregnated, he said it was in part because no child service officials had heard of the case.

Well, it turns out that wasn't true.

levernews.com
Emails Raise Questions About WashPost Fact Checker
The Post corrected Glenn Kessler’s column questioning reporting about a child rape victim, shortly after The Lever obtained emails showing inaccuracies.
10:58 AM · Aug 9, 2022

https://www.levernews.com/emails-raise-questions-about-washpost-fact-checker/

*snip*

Kessler’s Fact Checker column originally claimed that none of the county officials he contacted “were aware of such a case in their areas.” He hastily updated his column to say, “Unlike similar Ohio county agencies we contacted, Franklin County officials did not offer a response."

Neither of these statements were accurate: Emails obtained by The Lever through an open records request indicate that Franklin County Children Services responded to Kessler’s outreach promptly, and informed Kessler that their agency could not comment on specific cases, because this information is treated as confidential under Ohio law.

The Post added a correction to Kessler’s column on Monday after The Lever contacted the paper about these discrepancies.

“A previous version of this update said that Franklin County officials did not respond to a query about whether a referral had been made,” the paper wrote. “In fact, an email the county spokeswoman sent was inadvertently missed during the reporting. This piece has been updated with her response that the agency was prohibited from sharing information regarding specific cases.”

*snip*

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Seems a little overblown ...

"We ain't telling you shit about shit" is fairly synonymous with "no response" in the grand scheme of things.

[Nevilledog]

2. It was more than that.

He called the doctor an activist when that was totally irrelevant to the story. I'm seeing the most pushback against him from other journalists. You might not think much of it, but they do.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

6. Fair enough, thx for the addt'l details (nt)

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. A factchecker at the Washington Fucking Post should know there's a big difference -- and should

actually know that "we can't tell you" is going to be the answer before they ask.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. I get your point but apparently they're saying that an email was missed.

It can happen.

In the grand scheme, a literal no response tells you nothing more or less than 'we aren't telling you shit'.

He should've been more thorough in checking email replies, and he shouldn't have assigned ANY weight to either 'no response' or 'bugger off' responses, so if that was a major component in his casting doubt on the story, then that was the main screw-up.

What was the final verdict? Likely True, Unconfirmed, Likely False, etc?

[vanlassie]

4. Yes, and, if you're a high falutin' WaPo Fact Checker,

surely you KNOW you won’t get shit from any child protection agency. So what was with the stupid statement? They should choose a different profession.

[Hekate]

7. The big deal was th implication that the story was a lie made up by a "pro-abortion activist doctor"

That there was no pregnant 10 y.o. little girl who had been raped at age 9 — because that could never happen, right?

A lot of smear hinged on the fact-checker’s statement, sadly.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

8. Thanks! nt

[Hekate]

9. ***