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: Misinformation and claims of censorship
The major social media platforms aren’t always in lockstep on what content they moderate. But this week, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were all on the same page in blocking a video of a group called “America’s Frontline Doctors” touting the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19, contrary to scientific evidence. One of the […]
Factually: About those Facebook labels
This week, Facebook attached “Get Voting Information” links to posts by both President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden as part of its larger push to promote accurate election information on the platform. These additions come two months after Twitter attached a similar label to one of Trump’s tweets, which some at the time characterized as an attempt to fact-check the […]
Factually: The power of the pause
A couple weeks ago, the United Nations announced a new initiative called “Pause,” aimed at getting people to stop and think about what they’re sharing about COVID-19 on social media. The campaign is accompanied by the hashtag #takecarebeforeyoushare. It’s hard to know how effective such campaigns will be in stemming the spread of the worldwide “infodemic” of […]
Factually: Fact-checking a moving target
Over the weekend, The New York Times reported on a debate between 239 medical doctors and the World Health Organization over whether aerosolized droplets spread COVID-19. The disagreement echoes an earlier debate in the medical community over whether the public should abstain from taking ibuprofen to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus. COVID-19 is a fast-moving story. Information is […]
Factually: Officials confront COVID-19 vaccine resistance
Last month, FactCheck.org debunked a meme, still floating around on Facebook, that had a couple of made-up quotes attributed to the U.S. government’s top infectious disease official. It was called “The two faces of Dr. Anthony Fauci.” The first quote falsely had him saying that “even though hundreds of doctors” have cured people with the drug hydroxychloroquine, […]
Factually: Global Fact 7 Update
We’re halfway through (virtual) Global Fact 7, which was initially slated for three days this week in Oslo, Norway. But like all things, COVID-19 changed that. So the world’s fact-checkers are spending five days talking shop and talking about the future from wherever a stable internet connection can be found. This year’s conference features over 150 […]
Factually: Who should police online speech?
A new survey from the Knight Foundation and Gallup found that a majority of Americans (65%) want the internet to be a place of free expression. But eight in 10 people said they don’t trust big tech companies to make the right decisions about what content appears on their sites, and what should be removed. At the […]
Factually: A review of the evidence
What role does “the media” play in the spread of misinformation? A literature review published last month in the Annals of the International Communication Association tried to answer that question. Looking at previously published studies, the piece argues many “fake news sites” wouldn’t get much traction without the attention of more mainstream outlets. The authors define fake […]
Factually: Helping people fact-check on their own
Fact-checkers and other journalists who work to debunk misinformation spend most of their time arming people with the facts. In recent weeks, we’ve also seen them arm people with strategies to root out the falsehoods on their own. The “infodemic” surrounding COVID-19 had already pushed fact-checkers to capacity. The killing of George Floyd while in […]
Factually: Why Twitter’s ‘get the facts’ label matters
For the first time, Twitter this week flagged two tweets from the president of the United States. It didn’t choose the tweets that had attracted the most attention in Tuesday morning’s barrage from the White House (those would be the ones about Joe Scarborough). Nor was Twitter’s label particularly bold. “Get the facts about mail-in ballots,” read the blue label […]