Understanding Fact-Checking as a Global Phenomenon: Trends, Institutions, and Impact. From 2004 till the present date. (original) (raw)
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Boundaries not drawn: Mapping the institutional roots of the global fact-checking movement
2016
The last five years have seen a global surge in political fact-checking, reporting that specializes in debunking political misinformation. A growing occupational movement, originating in the United States but increasingly international in scope, has sought to legitimize fact-checking as unbiased journalism, to establish common standards and practices, and to secure reliable funding for this emerging genre. As a genuinely transnational professional movement which includes practitioners from multiple journalistic cultures as well as other fields, fact-checking offers a new site to consider whether and how professional journalism is meaningfully becoming globalized. This paper models a novel approach to mapping a diverse organizational landscape in terms of institutional ties to the fields of journalism, academia, and politics. Drawing on fieldwork from two international gatherings of fact-checkers, I array fact-checking outlets on a ternary graph and review their competing understandings of the mission, the target, and the practices of fact-checking. I highlight areas of convergence as well as divergence in this organizational milieu, focusing particular attention on boundaries not drawn—the willingness of professional journalists in this global movement to share jurisdictional authority with non-journalists. I conclude with suggestions for a comparative research agenda focused on this emergent area of practice.
International Communication Gazette, 2018
Since 2003 and the emergence of FactCheck.org in the United States, fact-checking has expanded both domestically and internationally. As of February, 2018, the Duke Reporter’s Lab identified nearly 150 active initiatives around the world. Seen as a professional reform movement in the journalistic community (Graves, 2016), this research explores fact-checker perceptions of why the practice is spreading globally at this point in time. Using a phenomenological approach, two focus groups were conducted among fact-checkers during the 2015 Global Fact-checking Summit in London, England. Participants shared rich experiences about conditions and contexts surrounding the emergence and challenges facing their organizations including perceived public disempowerment, declines in journalism, technological changes, and socio-political strife. Ultimately, as the purpose of this research is to help future fact-checkers around the world become aware of the circumstances under which fact-checking is most likely to emerge and thrive (or fail), recommendations from current global practitioners are offered.
Media and Communication, 2021
As democracy-building tools, fact-checking platforms serve as critical interventions in the fight against disinformation and polarization in the public sphere. The Duke Reporters' Lab notes that there are 290 active fact-checking sites in 83 countries , including a wide range of initiatives in Latin America and Spain. These regions share major challenges such as limited journalistic autonomy, difficulties of accessing public data, politicization of the media, and the growing impact of disinfor-mation. This research expands upon the findings presented in previous literature to gain further insight into the standards, values, and underlying practices embedded in Spanish and Latin American projects while identifying the specific challenges that these organizations face. In-depth interviews were conducted with decision-makers of the following independent platforms: Chequeado (Argentina), UYCheck (Uruguay), Maldita.es and Newtral (Spain), Fact Checking (Chile), Agência Lupa (Brazil), Ecuador Chequea (Ecuador), and ColombiaCheck (Colombia). This qualitative approach offers nuanced data on the volume and frequency of checks, procedures, dissemination tactics, and the perceived role of the public. Despite relying on small teams, the examined outlets' capacity to verify facts is noteworthy. Inspired by best practices in the US and Europe and the model established by Chequeado, all the sites considered employ robust methodologies while leveraging the power of digital tools and audience participation. Interviewees identified three core challenges in fact-checking practice: difficulties in accessing public data, limited resources, and the need to reach wider audiences. Starting from these results, the article discusses the ways in which fact-checking operations could be strengthened.
What keeps fact-checking organizations up at night
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This article is based on responses from 30 fact-checking organizations to a questionnaire that was sent to a total of 102 fact-checking organizations in the world as following: 33 in Europe, one in Australia, 11 in Africa, 30 in Asia, 14 in North America and 13 in South America. They were asked to indicate the importance of the listed impact-related challenges on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “not at all important”, and 5 meaning “very important.” The goal of our survey was to understand the needs and challenges of fact- checking organizations related to the impact of their work as a base for a series of upcoming webinars with fact-checking groups aimed at helping their efforts that the Center for Media, Data & Society (CMDS) is planning to organize in 2021.
Purposes, Principles, and Difficulties of Fact-checking in Ibero-America: Journalists’ Perceptions
Journalism Practice, 2022
Fact-checking journalism has become a common practice to counteract misinformation. This research analyzes the perceptions of fact-checkers in Ibero-America on the purposes, principles, and challenges of fact-checking. Specifically, we studied if there are differences in perception based on adherence to the International Fact-Checking Network’s (IFCN) Code of Principles, how frequently fact-checkers perform fact-checks, as well as their experience and age. Data were collected through a questionnaire that received 122 responses from fact-checkers in 17 countries. Results indicate that journalists’ experience appears to be a variable that can help understand the boundaries between fact-checking and political and social activism in Ibero-America. Less-experienced fact-checkers were more likely to consider activism to be a purpose of fact-checking. Age was a predictive factor for explaining reformist perceptions of the essence of fact-checking in Ibero-America, with younger fact-checkers more likely to state that the purpose of fact-checking is to uphold the ideals of journalism and serve as a commitment to information transparency. Pledging to adhere to IFCN’s Code of Principles was found to facilitate the use and analysis of fact-checking tools. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Fact-checking as Idea and Practice in Journalism
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, 2019
Fact-checking has a traditional meaning in journalism that relates to internal procedures for verifying facts prior to publication, as well as a newer sense denoting stories that publicly evaluate the truth of statements from politicians, journalists, or other public figures. Internal fact-checking first emerged as a distinct role in U.S. newsmagazines in the 1920s and 1930s, decades in which the objectivity norm became established among American journalists. While newspapers have not typically employed dedicated fact-checkers, the term also refers more broadly to verification routines and the professional concern with factual accuracy. Both scholars and journalists have been concerned with a decline of internal fact-checking resources and routines in the face of accelerated publishing cycles and the economic crisis faced by news organizations in many parts of the world. External fact-checking consists of publishing an evidence-based analysis of the accuracy of a political claim, news report, or other public text. Organizations specializing in such “political” fact-checking have been established in scores of countries around the world since the first sites appeared in the United States in the early 2000s. These outlets may be based in established news organizations but also “good government” groups, universities, and other areas of civil society; practitioners generally share the broad goals of helping people become better informed and promoting fact-based public discourse. A burgeoning area of research has tried to measure the effectiveness of various kinds of external fact-checking interventions in countering misinformation and promoting accurate beliefs. This literature generally finds that fact-checking can be effective in experimental settings, though the influence of corrections is limited by the familiar mechanisms of motivated reasoning.
Journalism Mass Communication Quarterly, 2024
This article evaluates the extent of social media policing in fact-checking (as opposed to verifying public figures' statements) and the thematic convergence across eight countries in Europe and Latin America. Based on audience reach, we collected links from various organizations (independent outlets, legacy media, or global news agencies). A representative stratified sample of 25% resulted in 3,154 articles. Among the findings, the trend of social media policing prevails across countries and organizations, except for most European legacy media. Independent news-born factchecking organizations follow a convergent path, sharing more similarities with their global counterparts than their national media peers.
The Watchdog Role of Fact-Checkers in Different Media Systems
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The article aims to capture the diversity of emerging practices in factchecking by exploring, on the one side, journalists' self-perception of the watchdog role they believe to perform and, on the other, the effective occurrence of such a role in different media systems. Data regarding the perception of the watchdog role stem from the Worlds of Journalism Survey, whereas evidence concerning the presence of the watchdog function derives from a content analysis of 2,792 factchecks published by FactCheck.org (United States), Pagella Politica (Italy), Correctiv (Germany), and Lupa (Brazil). While fact-checkers working for Correctiv rarely addressed declarations by political agents, those contributing to FactCheck.org prioritized verifying statements by former President Trump. In turn, Pagella Politica fact-checkers recurrently used assertive labels to stress the falsehood of public remarks, whilst "true" is the most used label in the Lupa case. There is correspondence between professionals' conceptions about their role and the watchdog stance agencies perform in most cases. The manuscript also discusses how idiosyncrasies featuring each professional culture and specific traits of media systems influence fact-checkers' work. Lastly, we hold that in some settings fact-checking may outline new frontiers for the notion of watchdog journalism, taking the journalistic voice to unprecedented levels of adversarialism.
The Function and Importance of Fact-Checking Organizations in the Era of Fake News
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The recent increase in usage of concepts such as ‘fake news’ or ‘post-truth’ reveals the importance of digital literacy especially on social media. In the digital era, people’s views on different topics are attempted to be manipulated with disinformation and fake news. Fake content is rapidly replacing the reality among new media users. It is stated with concepts such as ‘filter bubbles’ and ‘echo chambers’ that there is a greater tendency for people to be fed with content that is ideologically appropriate to their own views and to believe in fake news in this content. This article analyzes the structure and functioning of fact-checking organizations in the context of preventing propagation of fake news and improving digital literacy. The research is based on content analysis of verification activities of the fact-checking organization Teyit.org, which is a member of International Fact-Checking Network in Turkey, between January 1 and June 31, 2018. By conducting in-depth interviews...
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ArXiv, 2018
Fake news and misinformation spread in developing countries as fast as they do in developed countries with increasing penetration of the internet and social media. However, fighting misinformation is more difficult in developing countries where resources and necessary technologies are scarce. This study provides an understanding of the challenges various fact-checking initiatives face in three South Asian countries--Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. In-depth interviews were conducted with senior editors of six fact-checking initiatives. Challenges identified include lack of resources, technologies, and political pressure. An analysis of Facebook pages of these initiatives shows increasing user engagement with their posts.