Fact-checking and accountability journalism project
The American Press Institute’s Accountability Journalism and Fact-Checking Project aims to increase and improve fact-checking and other accountability journalism practices.
The project, which began as a grant-funded initiative, supports research to improve political fact-checking, and works with news organizations to significantly increase and improve accountability journalism practices as well as contribute to public debates on the topic.
You can follow the work of the project here, and get top advice from experts on our Better News fact-checking resource page. Sign up for the weekly newsletter or enroll in our free online course. For more information or to be involved, contact Susan Benkelman, director of the program, at susan.benkelman@pressinstitute.org.
Factually: Games to teach media literacy
In this newsletter, we spend a lot of time highlighting how misinformation is a global problem. To that end, fact-checkers and others are trying to promote more media literacy worldwide — and some of those efforts are quite fun. In the past few years, several games aimed at teaching people fact-checking skills and how to spot […]
Factually: Politicians co-opt fact-checking
Fact-checkers are used to spin from politicians. But now, some politicians around the world have started to mimic fact-checkers’ work to score points with voters. On Tuesday, the IFCN’s Cristina Tardáguila published a story about how the government of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has created its own fact-checking operation. Launched by Notimex, a daily newswire service […]
Factually: Harris debate performance triggers birtherism smears
Happy Independence Day to our U.S. readers! And Happy Thursday to everyone else! This newsletter has a global scope and reach because, as the IFCN’s sixth annual Global Fact-Checking Summit in Cape Town last month proved, fact-checkers around the world can learn from one another and build on and celebrate each other’s successes. Here in America […]
Factually: How much is misinformation to blame for news avoidance?
The idea that the spread of misinformation makes some people want to tune out the news altogether has always lent a paradoxical quality to the work of fact-checkers and other truth-tellers. It’s hard to deliver the truth if people are avoiding the news because they think there are too many falsehoods out there. Now comes […]
Factually: A few takeaways from Global Fact 6
Howdy from Cape Town! This week, the IFCN traveled to South Africa for our sixth annual Global Fact-Checking Summit. During the three-day event — the largest yet — journalists, technology companies, nonprofits and startups from around the world are mingling to discuss the possibilities and obstacles facing the future of fact-checking. What are those obstacles? It depends on […]
Factually: The problem with deepfakes
(June 13, 2019 newsletter) Today, the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Intelligence is holding a hearing on deepfake videos. Researchers will testify to Congress about the potential threat manipulated content poses to national security — particularly in the lead-up to the 2020 election. And based on the past few weeks, the committee will have plenty to […]
America’s future fact-checkers know a lot already
Hey y’all, it’s Daniel. In this newsletter, we spend a lot of time reporting on and analyzing some of the internet’s biggest problems — and how fact-checkers do (or don’t) help solve them. But this week, I have some good news for you: The kids are alright. On Monday, I traveled to Detroit to teach […]
Factually: Some basic facts on the Pelosi fake
Fact-checkers and other players in the truth-telling business have been preoccupied in the past week by an altered video of Nancy Pelosi. The story, originally covered in The Washington Post, involves a slowed-down video designed to make Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, appear to slur her words and struggle to speak.The […]
Factually: Russia’s video play
The New York Times last week published a striking piece about how the Russian news network RT has been airing story after story about the dangers of 5G cell phones as part of a disinformation effort to undermine the United States’ comfort with — and advances in — the technology (which scientists say isn’t actually harmful). We say […]
Factually: Twitter goes after anti-vaxxers
Twitter is trying a new tactic to head off misinformation about vaccines. This week, several media outlets reported on how the social media platform had started surfacing factual information about vaccines in search. As of last Friday, if a user searches for vaccine information in the United States, the top result will be a tweet from the Department of Health and Human […]