We know from newsrooms using our Metrics for News program that accountability journalism — holding institutions of power to account through reporting — is a top driver of audience engagement. It also heightens reader trust, as audiences learn that their local newsrooms are looking out for their interests.

Our Accountability Journalism Project is designed to help news organizations expand and improve their accountability journalism practices, as well as contribute to public conversations on the topic.

Try these API resources for improving accountability journalism and fact-checking:

• Learn more about our Accountability Journalism Project.
• Contact Susan Benkelman, director of the Accountability Journalism Project, for guidance on improving or launching a fact-checking program or integrating accountability practices into your everyday reporting.
• Join our Trusted Elections Network, which is coordinating a network of newsroom leaders, civic and academic institutions and experts working throughout 2020 to address misinformation and other threats to secure, trusted elections.
• Read our report on “Strategies for truth-telling in a time of misinformation and polarization”
• Learn how journalists can change the way they build stories to create organic news fluency.
• Find out the seven characteristics of effective accountability journalists.
• Read our white paper on the future of fact-checking.
• Subscribe to Factually, a weekly newsletter produced jointly by API and the International Fact-Checking Network of the Poynter Institute, which provides a regular dive into the world of fact-checking and misinformation.
• Check out our sections on accountability journalism and fact-checking on Better News, a repository of curated tips and case studies addressing common newsroom challenges.