Proving even traditional media is capable of having fun, The Washington Post today released a plugin designed to fact-check our President-elect. ‘RealDonaldContext’ is a Chrome plugin that scours Trump’s tweets and adds fact-check summaries beneath them.
As for what’s deemed inaccurate, that’s for WaPo’s editors to decide. Its creator, Phillip Bump did point out that readers are welcome to point out Trump tweets that need additional explication. If found to be false — either in part, or wholly — the tweet displays a grey box with a few leading sentences and a link to a longer piece to help clear up any confusion. The publication claims “our goal is to provide additional context where needed for Trump’s tweets moving forward (and a few golden oldies).”
Bump told Ars Technica the fact checking currently only goes back to late November.
While undoubtedly useful for all politicians (not just Trump) the plugin does come across as a bit of a counterpunch. Trump, after all, banned the publication from his press pool after accusing it of “incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting” and calling the paper “phony and dishonest.”
Pot, meet kettle.
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