Fact-Checking

By Alexios Mantzarlis • January 22, 2017

2016 is back with a vengeance. Last year, throughout the presidential campaign, journalists wondered how and whether to fact-check political figures live on air. Kellyanne Conway's Sunday morning appearance on "Meet the Press" is a clear indication that those questions are as pressing now as they were then. The counselor to President Trump sparred with host Chuck Todd over the … Read More

By James Warren • January 18, 2017

"Fake news" stories favoring Donald Trump far exceeded those favoring Hillary Clinton but did not have a significant impact on the presidential election, concludes a new survey of social and other media consumption. The study, which also downplays the political impact of social media in general, is co-authored by economists Matthew Gentzkow of Stanford University and Hunt Allcott of New … Read More

By Ragnar Weilandt • January 18, 2017

Much like U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the German right-wing populist party has a rocky relationship with the media. The party, ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD), recently decided to bar a range of individual journalists as well as the entire German public broadcasting sector from a congress of European right-wing populist parties. Its functionaries and supporters regularly dismiss the news media … Read More

By Alexios Mantzarlis • January 12, 2017

Fact-checkers had a big year in 2016; will 2017 prove as eventful? Below are seven predictions of what the year ahead holds in store for fact-checking. As with the 2016 predictions, I promise to return to these when the year is over and evaluate how they fared. (You can check out last year's annotated predictions here). 1. Fact-checkers … Read More

By Alexios Mantzarlis • January 10, 2017

Italy's fake news debate has been so bitter that its U.S. equivalent feels like a schoolyard tiff by comparison. Sure, those upset with Donald Trump's victory have accused Facebook of tilting the election by enabling an unmitigated spread of misinformation, while the president-elect and his team repurposed the fake news epithet to attack mainstream media. The extent to which the phenomenon … Read More

By Brad Scriber • January 4, 2017

In a surprise announcement on Christmas Eve, President-elect Donald Trump declared that he planned to shut down his private foundation. After touting the foundation's contributions, Trump declared that, in order "to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President I have decided to continue to pursue my strong interest in philanthropy in other ways." The … Read More

By Alexios Mantzarlis • December 21, 2016

2016 was fact-checking's finest year [1]. No it wasn't, it was the year of "post-truth" [2] — some preferred "post-fact" [3] — and fact-checking is a fool's errand. The discussion about facts in journalism worldwide has rarely been as fractured and animated as it has been in 2016, so we collected 366 links, one for each day … Read More

By Aaron Huertas • December 20, 2016

As journalists grapple with the rise of fake news, it’s worth examining what happens when policymakers embrace misinformation instead of evidence when it comes to climate change. In September, YourNewsWire breathlessly told its readers that thousands of scientists had declared climate change “a hoax.” This was big news — at least on Facebook — where the YourNewsWire post was … Read More

By Alexios Mantzarlis • December 19, 2016

Our annual collection of media corrections is, undoubtedly, an excuse to chuckle at our industry's missteps. But it's also a recognition of an honorable practice that not everyone follows. Outlets that mark their corrected articles clearly or collect them in one easily searchable section (for example, The Guardian) may be over-represented in this list, but they should be commended. A note … Read More

By Benjamin Mullin • December 15, 2016

Almost a quarter of Americans acknowledged sharing fake news political news online, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. The report, which is based on a telephone survey of more than 1,000 people, showed that 23 percent of respondents shared fabricated stories. In that group, 14 percent said they knew the story was fake at the … Read More

By Benjamin Mullin and Alexios Mantzarlis • December 15, 2016

Facebook announced today that it is taking several steps to reduce the reach of fake news. One of the initiatives announced by the social network, third-party fact-checking, will allow verified fact-checkers in the United States to review stories to determine if they are true or false. If enough fact checkers mark a story as fake, the post will be marked … Read More

By Benjamin Mullin • December 15, 2016

Facebook on Thursday unveiled a multi-part plan to fight fake news that includes teaming up with fact-checkers in the United States to cut down on the reach of bogus stories. The plan (which Poynter's International Fact-checking Network is involved with) represents the first time Facebook has given fact-checkers the ability to verify news on its platform, and comes after … Read More

By Alexios Mantzarlis • November 30, 2016

On Sunday night, just as Americans were reaching the end of their Thanksgiving leftovers, their Twitter feeds were clogged with unfounded allegations of voter fraud by the President-elect. tf is even the point of journalism? pic.twitter.com/aqcUKGdEZJ — Christopher Wong (@chrswng) November 27, 2016 As with the aftermath of Trump's Hamilton tweetstorm, political editors … Read More

By Alexios Mantzarlis • November 29, 2016

Update: at 12.45pm U.S. Eastern the post reappeared. The headline and story have been updated to reflect this as well as a subsequent response from Facebook. On November 19th, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used his Facebook page to outline his company's nascent strategy to combat "fake news." On Tuesday morning, the post stopped appearing on his timeline, and links … Read More

By Alexios Mantzarlis • November 28, 2016

Facebook is an important source of traffic for virtually all news outlets in the United States. New data, however, indicates that the social network is a far more important channel for some of the largest hyperpartisan and fake news sites in the country. Analytics company Jumpshot tracked Facebook referrals to 20-plus websites between September 11th and November 15th. It … Read More