The Fact-Checking Universe in Spring 2012: An Overview (original) (raw)
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Making a Difference? A Critical Assessment of Fact-Checking in 2012
The enterprise of fact-checking continues to proliferate throughout the U.S. news media to an unprecedented degree. While many welcome this trend, others question the effectiveness of fact-checking and some have even begun to push back. A common critique is that fact- checking has failed to eradicate deceptive and misleading claims by politicians and is therefore ineffective. Others have concerns about the presence of bias in fact-checking work. This report draws on evidence from social science as well as recent interviews with reporters, fact-checkers, critics, and political figures to consider these issues and how they played out during the 2012 campaign. Because fact-checking is relatively young, robust metrics to empirically measure its effectiveness are still being established. Hence, a recurring theme in this report is the difficulty in definitively distinguishing the effects of fact-checking.
Influences of Media Routines on Fact-Checking
Southwestern Mass Communication Journal
This exploratory study examined PolitiFact fact-checks (N=18,446) published between 2008 and 2020 to understand the extent to which the largest political fact-checking network in the United States utilizes traditional media routines in finding check-worthy claims and gathering information to verify claims. An automated content analysis revealed that PolitiFact relies more on routine channels of news production to find check-worthy claims than non-routine channels. The results also show that non-elite sources account for a negligible portion of PolitiFact sources, but the organization uses more non-traditional channels to find sources.
Sometimes political fact-checking works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Here’s what can make the difference.
Does political fact-checking actually accomplish anything? Just two years ago, there were few empirical measures to tell us whether fact-checking was effective either in deterring politicians from lying or in changing people’s beliefs. Nor were there measurements of what kinds of fact-checks worked best. Now there are. Just over 18 months later, the research is beginning to proliferate. Here’s what social science has learned about the growing enterprise of fact-checking.
Checking the Fact-checkers in 2008: Predicting Political Ad Scrutiny and Assessing Consistency
Journal of Political Marketing, 2015
Which types of political ads are most likely to draw criticism from fact-checkers? Are fact-checkers consistent in their evaluations of political ads? Examining general election television ads from the 2008 U.S. presidential race, and based upon the evaluations of FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com, and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, this study demonstrates it was the attack ads from candidates that were most likely to draw scrutiny from the fact-checkers. Most importantly, a high level of agreement between the fact- checkers indicates their success at selecting political claims that can be consistently evaluated. While political advertisers are increasingly using evidence to support their claims, what may be more critical in drawing evaluations from fact-checkers is the verifiability of a claim. The implications of consistent fact-checking on the public, political actors, journalism and democracy are discussed. With the revelation that fact-checking can be consistently practiced, localized efforts at fact-checking need encouragement, particularly as political TV ads increasingly drown out other potential sources of information for the public and increasingly are used in downballot races, local initiatives, referendums and judicial races.
2023
Professional fact-checkers and fact-checking organizations provide a critical public service. Skeptics of modern media, however, often question the accuracy and objectivity of factcheckers. The current study assessed agreement among two independent fact-checkers, The Washington Post and PolitiFact, regarding the false and misleading statements of then President Donald J. Trump. Differences in statement selection and deceptiveness scaling were investigated. The Washington Post checked PolitiFact fact-checks 77.4% of the time (22.6% selection disagreement). Moderate agreement was observed for deceptiveness scaling. Nearly complete agreement was observed for bottom-line attributed veracity. Additional cross-checking with other sources (Snopes, FactCheck.org), original sources, and with fact-checking for the first 100 days of President Joe Biden's administration were inconsistent with potential ideology effects. Our evidence suggests fact-checking is a difficult enterprise, there is considerable variability between fact-checkers in the raw number of statements that are checked, and finally, selection and scaling account for apparent discrepancies among fact-checkers.
2018
The 2016 presidential race was unprecedented in many ways and brought to the center of public discussion the role the news media must play in correcting information provided by political figures. Unfortunately, the campaign season made Americans too familiar with slanted campaign statements, false claims made by both presidential candidates, and the rise of fake news (Patterson, 2016). The slew of misleading information has highlighted the importance of a specific type of journalism meant to weed out the truth-namely, fact-checking. Looking back at the 2016 presidential campaign, some media critics have questioned how well the media performed, and some even blamed the media for the election outcome (Benton, 2016). In light of these criticisms, the goal of our study is to take a systematic look at the media's attempt to fact-check the presidential candidates during the final stretch of the 2016 race for the Oval Office. We examine how the news media performed their watchdog role by looking at several established criteria for fact-checking in the aftermath of the three presidential debates. Disciplines Disciplines Journalism Studies | Mass Communication Comments Comments This book chapter is published as Dimitrova, Daniela V. & Nelson, Kimberly. "Fact-checking and the 2016 presidential election: News media's attempts to correct misleading information from the debates." In
The Influence of Media Trust and Normative Role Expectations on the Credibility of Fact Checkers
Journalism Practice, 2022
Fact-checking has been granted a pivotal role in mitigating the effects of online disinformation, but its effectiveness has nonetheless been questioned (Lee and Shin 2019). Like any persuasive communication, fact checkers depend on their recipients perceiving both their messages and them as credible (Lombardi, Seyranian, and Sinatra 2014; Lombardi, Nussbaum, and Sinatra 2016). This study investigates the role of the perceived credibility of the fact checker as possible detriment to the effectiveness of fact-checking efforts by means of an online survey-embedded experiment. Results show that the perceived credibility of the fact checker and fact-checking messages is best explained by normative expectations of the roles of fact checkers and trust in traditional media. Some users perceive fact checkers as elite power structures in journalism or, in other words, as collaborative-facilitators for state propaganda (Hanitzsch and Vos 2018; see also Fawzi 2020). Further, low trust in media and politics predicts perceived credibility of disinformation better than political partisanship. The findings suggest that fact checkers should be more transparent and proactive in communicating their motives and identities. Further implications are discussed.
Digital Journalism, 2018
Fact-checking has been high on the agenda in many countries for some time, increasingly so after the influx of disinformation, propaganda, and so-called fake news spreading online. Now 37 years after Herbert Gans’ Deciding What’s News (1979), Lucas Graves’ book Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism is a timely and highly important book. By studying three of the central political fact-checking services in the USA—FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and the Fact Checker—Graves examines the anatomy of the new institution of fact checkers that is developing in the midst of journalism. Through ethnographic work inside these fact-checking outlets carried out over several years, Graves observes the fact-checkers in training, at work, and in conferences, in addition to performing fact-checks himself. The ethnographic perspective gives us a valuable tour behind the scene of the political fact checking community in the US. Graves’ book, as a result, offers readers detailed insights into a new journalistic genre and details of a journalistic institution under development.
The International Journal of Press/Politics, 2020
This study examines audience relationships to fact-checking sites in the United States. Focus is placed on predictors of audience awareness of, attitudes toward, and visits to such sites within a stage model framework drawn from the persuasive message literature. Analysis of survey data from a U.S. sample shows that liberals and liberal/mainstream news consumers are more aware of, positive toward, and likely to report using fact-checking sites. Conservatives are less positive and conservative news consumers see such sites as less useful to them. Findings indicate that while specific combinations of predictors of awareness, attitudes, and behavior vary, fact-checking sites have a particular appeal to liberals and liberal/mainstream news consumers. Results point to U.S. fact-checking sites being absorbed into wider ideological discourses and patterns of ideological news consumption.