Alexios Mantzarlis
Alexios Mantzarlis is the director and editor of the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute.
Factually: Alexios bids farewell; Facebook expands fact-checking in India
So long, fact-checkers Friday is Alexios Mantzarlis’ last day as IFCN Director, so we’ll let him have the top of the newsletter this week. (He also got cake.) Alexios will be succeeded by Baybars Örsek, formerly the director of Turkish fact-checking site Doğruluk Payı. Cristina Tardáguila, the director of Brazilian fact-checking wire Agência Lupa, will also be […]
Factually: Takeaways from the SOTU
Fact-checking the State of the Union The State of the Union represents, as CNN’s Brian Stelter called it, the Super Bowl of fact-checking. And like this year’s football game, there was a lot of interest for an event that may or may not have lived up to its hype, depending on your perspective. After watching the […]
Factually: Greek minister pushes Soros conspiracy
Politicians are great amplifiers A lot of effort is put toward detecting misinformation at its source. Whether it’s 4chan, a subreddit or a WhatsApp group, knowing the origin of a hoax can help explain its appeal. But as Data & Society’s Whitney Phillips has repeatedly noted, the channels of amplification matter. Media mechanisms can be gamed into […]
The Week in Fact-Checking: Misinformers target U.S. presidential candidates
Think it’s too early to focus on the 2020 presidential campaign? The trolls apparently don’t. For all we learned about misinformation in 2016, it’s already clear journalists and the public will need to be on guard early for bad actors spreading falsehoods about the candidates in the next campaign cycle. They work fast, too. U.S. […]
The Week in Fact Checking: Fact-checking immigration as a vertical
One out of every three stories that readers submit to Maldito Bulo for fact-checking is related to immigration. That’s why Maldita.es, the digital media outlet that houses Spanish fact-checking site Maldito Bulo, launched on Tuesday a parallel project called Maldita Migración. The minisite is dedicated to uncovering data and fact-checking hoaxes about migration. The new […]
The Week in Fact-Checking: Fact-checkers sparred with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over their alleged ‘bias.’ But it ended on a high note.
United States Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s interview Sunday with Anderson Cooper on CBS’s “60 Minutes” was notable for a number of reasons. For one, not many first-year members of Congress get that kind of platform. But one comment in particular touched a nerve for the fact-checking community. When Ocasio-Cortez was asked about a Washington Post fact check awarding her four […]
The Week in Fact-Checking: Growing pains, Jurassic Park, California dreamin’
“A dark cloud hangs over us. The disaffection and distrust that have plagued mainstream media outlets for many years is now spilling over to fact-checkers.” Those were among the remarks Alexios delivered at the fifth annual Global Fact-Checking Summit in Rome last week, where more than 200 fact-checkers from 56 gathered to share best practices. In a report […]
The Week in Fact-Checking: All grown up and ‘no longer a fresh-faced movement’
ROME, Italy – This week, at the fifth annual Global Fact-Checking Summit, 200 fact-checkers gathered to share best practices, demo innovative technology and discuss problems that misinformation poses to the media industry. In conjunction with the conference, the International Fact-Checking Network published a report that takes a look behind the curtain of several different fact-checking projects. Check out the […]
The Week in Fact-Checking: Zika rumors and other reasons ‘fake news’ is bad for your health
When it comes to Zika, rumors could fare better than real news on social media —making disease prevention efforts more difficult. That’s according to a study from Alexios and four other researchers, which looks at the engagement of verified stories vs. popular rumors about the virus. Drawing upon audience statistics from BuzzSumo, the authors found that hoaxes […]
The Week in Fact-Checking: Fake ‘royal’ expert, fake news in court, Harry Potter the fact-checker
First up this week: Let’s take a look at the fun side of fact-checking. Daniel Radcliffe, the original “Harry Potter,” will star in the Broadway production of the 2012 book “The Lifespan of a Fact.” PolitiFact re-upped its fact check of Jake Tapper and Ben Shapiro’s comic book beef on Twitter. John Oliver fact-checks the meaning of “guardianship” with […]