Fake Factor: Jesse Watters Twitter Feed a Hoax

After all the back-and-forth on Friday between Gawker and O’Reilly Factor “ambush” producer Jesse Watters, it appeared to continue over the weekend as Watters responded on Twitter.

And as Watters kept tweeting, Gawker kept responding. But there was one major problem: Watters doesn’t have a Twitter account, and the one bearing his name was a fake.

One of the main factors giving credibility to the account was an exchange with Factor regular, Amanda Carpenter. It was Carpenter, however, who revealed Saturday it was a fake account: “I talked with the real Jesse Watters. He’d like to shut down the fake @JesseWatters. Help him by getting this message out.”

The fake account got in a final shot: “Oh well, 500 followers is a good end point. Good job ‘reporting’, @AmandaCarpenter . @Gawker Nice fact-checking.”

So what about the “real” Watters? Gawker’s John Cook writes, “We’re sorry for calling you a liar based on the musings of your fake Twitter self, Jesse. We’re not sorry for calling you all that other stuff. See you soon.”

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