Fact-checking and accountability journalism project
The American Press Institute is leading a project to increase and improve the practice of fact-checking and accountability journalism.
The grant-funded project 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 Jane Elizabeth, director of the program, at jane.elizabeth@pressinstitute.org.
This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of U.S. congressional committees over the course of two days. While the testimony, prompted by Facebook’s recent scandal involving data firm Cambridge Analytica, was mostly focused on user privacy, it shed a little light on how Zuckerberg views the platform’s misinformation problem — as well as how ill-informed Congress is about how Facebook […]
What a difference a year of political upheaval makes. The Midwest Political Science Association since 1939 has focused on study and research of political science. Common themes for its annual conference in Chicago include voting patterns, electoral politics, politics in emerging democracies. This year, it’s all about the era of fake news. Today in Chicago […]
The Malaysian government raised eyebrows this week when both houses passed a bill outlawing fake news, punishable by up to six years in prison for both its publication and sharing. Online service providers would be responsible for third-party content, foreign news outlets reporting on Malaysia could be affected and anyone could lodge a complaint against an alleged purveyor of misinformation. But […]
To raise awareness of fact–checking, the world will mark International Fact-Checking Day, held each year on April 2 — the day after April Fool’s Day. This week, the International Fact–Checking Network launched Factcheckingday.com, a resource for citizens, readers and educators seeking to examine the validity of information, especially online. International Fact–Checking Day is a rallying cry for more facts in politics, journalism and […]
In the fight against online misinformation, Facebook’s News Feed is typically front and center. But an investigation from BuzzFeed News found that spammers are increasingly using fake groups to spread conspiracy theories, troll, hack and harass other users. The tactic is a global problem — and it could get worse. Given Facebook’s recent announcement that group content will be given more prominent […]
This week, the European Commission’s high level group on misinformation released its final report, which includes calls for supporting media financially, data sharing from platforms and an explicit recommendation against outlawing fake news. (Here are six takeaways from the report). Still, countries around the world have increasingly taken an interest in fighting misinformation. In light of the growing governmental interest in fighting […]
Over the past month and a half, Alexios Mantzarlis and Daniel Funke tracked fact-checkers’ analytics to see how the recent Facebook algorithm change affected them. The topline finding is that, while there was a major dip in shares and interactions compared to 2017 — in part due to political cycles — they didn’t detect any major fluctuations in fact-checkers’ […]
Much of the global conversation around misinformation has centered around the United States: its politics, platforms and polarized public. But other players have an increasingly important role. For instance, the International Fact-Checkers Network reports: the Austrian foreign minister recently called a journalist “Pinocchio” and fake news — and got sued, the United Kingdom Embassy in the […]
Last week’s shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 dead and several injured spawned the usual hoaxes that follow American tragedies: fake images of the shooter, posts claiming he was a member of Antifa, false identifications and phony screenshots of his Instagram account. Then there were those that aren’t so typical. Imposter tweets targeted journalists attempting to […]
Two curious researchers who wanted to get behind the scenes of disinformation campaigns in the Philippines were surprised at who they found there. It turns out the country’s advertising and public relations executives are playing a key role in disseminating misinformation, hiding in plain sight behind an army of highly organized freelancers. Read a summary; download the […]
