Kiosk History – the doomed weather kiosk in downtown Washington and Fake News
The reliability of weather reports from a kiosk on Pennsylvania Avenue was a hot topic a century ago.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
Washington’s weather kiosk was located on Pennsylvania Avenue, near E Street NW. It happened to be directly adjacent to The Washington Post building at the time.
Initially, the kiosk was quite popular with the public, and its reports were frequently cited by the media, particularly The Post. But after a couple of decades passed, Washingtonians began to complain that the kiosk was not reporting accurate temperature readings. The kiosk’s temperature was often 10 degrees warmer than the actual temperature, particularly on sunny afternoons.
The kiosk became a Great Depression-era “fake news” controversy in Washington.