Fact-checking needs a reboot
Archive
“‘Informing democracy’ is not enough in an age of rampant lies about elections and public health and climate. Fact-checkers need to be more assertive in getting truthful information to the audience that needs it.”
Fact-checking is failing.
The old way of publishing fact-checks — putting them on websites and promoting them through social media — isn’t getting them to the people who need them. It’s time to reimagine how fact-checkers publish and broadcast their work.
For two decades, fact-checking organizations relied on a dependable model: They published articles on websites. They also tried a variety of other ways to spread the facts — tweets and TikToks and podcasts and even TV segments. But for the most part, the main way they published their work was on the web.
It worked — sort of. Fact-checking became a Thing, foundations kicked in money, and some politicians (um, mostly Democrats) became more cautious about what they said and did.
But now, 20 years later, there are big gaps. A study of 2022 coverage by my colleagues in the Duke Reporters’ Lab found there are still giant “fact deserts” with little or no political fact-checking. Half the states had no fact-checking organization and, in those that did, the odds of a politician being checked were tiny. State legislators (there are more than 7,000 in the United States) were checked only 77 times.
Another problem is that fact-checks aren’t reaching the people who need them the most. Although this hasn’t been studied as directly as the location of fact-checkers, it’s pretty clear from the research that Republicans distrust political fact-checking.
In the coming year, I predict (okay, I hope) that fact-checkers will reassess their goals and reimagine how they publish their work. It’s time to get rid of our old approach and 2024, an election year, is an ideal time.
After I founded PolitiFact in 2007, I often said that our goal wasn’t to change people’s minds or get politicians to stop lying — it was simply to inform democracy. In the last few years, I’ve changed my mind. “Informing democracy” is not enough in an age of rampant lies about elections and public health and climate. Fact-checkers need to be more assertive in getting truthful information to the audience that needs it.
In 2024, they will dream up new ways of getting the facts to the people who need them. Fact-checkers will be bold and think more like marketers trying to push content rather than publishers waiting for the audience to come to a website. They will experiment with new forms that target the people who are misinformed and push the content directly to them.
Another way they will innovate: They’ll get tech companies and social media platforms to expand the use of fact-checking data to suppress misinformation. My Duke team helped develop ClaimReview, a tagging system used by most of the world’s fact-checkers. Tech companies such as Google use it to identify fact-checks and highlight them in search results and news summaries. But this is just a start. ClaimReview and MediaReview, a sibling tagging system for fact-checks of videos and images, can be used more widely to suppress inaccurate content.
I’m also encouraged about the big infusion of money and energy that will come from Press Forward, the ambitious new venture to fund local journalism. The early signs indicate it will be built around regional partnerships, which bodes well for an expansion of fact-checking. I expect the local leaders will make fact-checking a key component of their funding.
I’m not embarrassed to say fact-checking needs a reboot. It’s had a great run for the past two decades, but it’s time for a fresh approach. I’m hopeful it will get one in 2024.
Bill Adair is founder of PolitiFact and the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University.
Archive
“‘Informing democracy’ is not enough in an age of rampant lies about elections and public health and climate. Fact-checkers need to be more assertive in getting truthful information to the audience that needs it.”
Fact-checking is failing.
The old way of publishing fact-checks — putting them on websites and promoting them through social media — isn’t getting them to the people who need them. It’s time to reimagine how fact-checkers publish and broadcast their work.
For two decades, fact-checking organizations relied on a dependable model: They published articles on websites. They also tried a variety of other ways to spread the facts — tweets and TikToks and podcasts and even TV segments. But for the most part, the main way they published their work was on the web.
It worked — sort of. Fact-checking became a Thing, foundations kicked in money, and some politicians (um, mostly Democrats) became more cautious about what they said and did.
But now, 20 years later, there are big gaps. A study of 2022 coverage by my colleagues in the Duke Reporters’ Lab found there are still giant “fact deserts” with little or no political fact-checking. Half the states had no fact-checking organization and, in those that did, the odds of a politician being checked were tiny. State legislators (there are more than 7,000 in the United States) were checked only 77 times.
Another problem is that fact-checks aren’t reaching the people who need them the most. Although this hasn’t been studied as directly as the location of fact-checkers, it’s pretty clear from the research that Republicans distrust political fact-checking.
In the coming year, I predict (okay, I hope) that fact-checkers will reassess their goals and reimagine how they publish their work. It’s time to get rid of our old approach and 2024, an election year, is an ideal time.
After I founded PolitiFact in 2007, I often said that our goal wasn’t to change people’s minds or get politicians to stop lying — it was simply to inform democracy. In the last few years, I’ve changed my mind. “Informing democracy” is not enough in an age of rampant lies about elections and public health and climate. Fact-checkers need to be more assertive in getting truthful information to the audience that needs it.
In 2024, they will dream up new ways of getting the facts to the people who need them. Fact-checkers will be bold and think more like marketers trying to push content rather than publishers waiting for the audience to come to a website. They will experiment with new forms that target the people who are misinformed and push the content directly to them.
Another way they will innovate: They’ll get tech companies and social media platforms to expand the use of fact-checking data to suppress misinformation. My Duke team helped develop ClaimReview, a tagging system used by most of the world’s fact-checkers. Tech companies such as Google use it to identify fact-checks and highlight them in search results and news summaries. But this is just a start. ClaimReview and MediaReview, a sibling tagging system for fact-checks of videos and images, can be used more widely to suppress inaccurate content.
I’m also encouraged about the big infusion of money and energy that will come from Press Forward, the ambitious new venture to fund local journalism. The early signs indicate it will be built around regional partnerships, which bodes well for an expansion of fact-checking. I expect the local leaders will make fact-checking a key component of their funding.
I’m not embarrassed to say fact-checking needs a reboot. It’s had a great run for the past two decades, but it’s time for a fresh approach. I’m hopeful it will get one in 2024.
Bill Adair is founder of PolitiFact and the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University.
