Welcome to Next Up. If I look familiar, that's because I'm the host of this program. My name is Mark Kalpert. I'm the editor-in-chief of the live interactive video platform two-way. And as always, this week and forevermore, your guide to everything that's next up in politics, media, and beyond. Thank you for joining. You know, I said last episode, I don't want this show to be about media criticism.

It's just I'm more interesting covering America and government and politics and the new Taylor Swift album, plenty of things I'm interested in.

But I feel compelled again to talk about the media today, in part because of the reaction we got, very, very big reaction and kindly,

very favorable reaction to the interview I did with Glenn Kessler. You'll recall he was until a few days ago, the fabled fact checker, the dispenser of Pinocchio's from the Washington Post. And he had

written in his substack that the Washington Post, and I'm paraphrasing here,

but I think fairly, was addicted to its liberal readers and therefore couldn't risk producing content that was conservative or even fair for worry that more of its consumers would leave the paper and the digital subscriptions because they want a paper that is

hostile to Donald Trump. And I wanted to talk to him about that because it's an extraordinary

thing for a guy who worked decades in the Washington Post newsroom, who was their fact checker,

one of the most important jobs at the paper to try to hold all powerful interests accountable

to the public interest,

fairly and accurately, not hold Donald Trump accountable unfairly. I thought, what would he say?

How would he explain that? A guy who cast himself as fair, acknowledging that the post was

addicted to its liberal supporters. I really didn't know

what to expect. The reaction from you all on X and elsewhere, emails that you sent in, were

pretty uniform. I don't recall seeing a single tweet or getting a single email from somebody

saying, you were unfair to Kessler

or the post isn't liberally biased.

Here's some of the reaction on Twitter, A1 from somebody named Matt.

Mark Halpern pushed Washington Post fact checker K Checker Kessler, to admit cheap fake error.

We talked a lot in the interview about how he fact checked a video showing Joe Biden's obvious

cognitive decline and suggested in his fact check that no was a misleading video.

And this person, Matt, on Twitter, wrote, if you think buying oceanfront property in Louisiana is a good idea, then you'll believe most fact checkers.

...