Former Washington Post Fact-Checker Complains Outlet Wasn’t Liberal Enough

Former Washington Post editor Glenn Kessler, who had written “The Fact Checker” since 2011, expressed dismay on Tuesday about the outlet becoming less left-leaning.

The Post decided not to endorse a 2024 presidential candidate in October, and its owner, Jeff Bezos, announced in February that the outlet’s opinion section would focus on defending personal liberties and free markets. Kessler, in a Substack piece, criticized both moves as repelling the Post’s left-wing readership.

“hile it would be great to get a more balanced mix of liberal and conservative readers, I didn’t understand how one could attract conservative readers … without alienating existing readers,” Kessler wrote. “The Post opinion pages already had an array of liberal, conservative and libertarian voices, but that’s not the same as the news pages. The Washington Post news division prides itself on accountability journalism, scrutinizing whoever is in power. Then, in October, Bezos killed a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris in the presidential election.”

“he time to announce a no-endorsement policy was at the start of the election cycle, not weeks before a close election. The Post’s liberal readers viewed it as a move to curry favor with Trump, and 300,000 canceled their subscriptions within days — 12 percent of total digital subscriptions,” he added. “Another 75,000 people canceled when Bezos then announced in February that the opinion page would pivot to defending personal liberties and the free market. Not necessarily conservative but certainly libertarian.”