Background
Assessed By: Laurens LauerAssessed On: 3/24/2017
Assessment Conclusion
A short summary in native publishing language
As of 3/24/2017 Laurens Lauer assesses this application as
Section 1 : ORGANIZATION
To be eligible to be a signatory, applicants must meet these two criteria
Proof of registration Evidence required: Please provide evidence that the signatory is a legally-registered organization set up exclusively for the purpose of fact-checking or the distinct fact-checking project of a recognized media house or research institution.
The organization is part of the foundation "La Voz Pública para la Verificación del Discurso Público", a non-partisan and non-profit organization set up and authorized to operate as such by Resolution No. 1392 of the General Inspection of Justice in 2012.
Archive Evidence required: Insert a link to the archive of fact checks published in the previous three months. If you do not collect all fact checks in one place, please explain how the fact-checking is conducted by your organization.
Chequeado has published 30 dedicated fact-checks in the last 3 month along various further articles concerning promises, data-article, and investigative reports. The number of fact-checks and the overall output accordingly meet the required criteria.
Section 2 : NONPARTISANSHIP AND FAIRNESS
To be eligible to be a signatory, applicants must meet these two criteria
Body of work sample Evidence required: Please share links to ten fact checks that better represent the scope and consistency of your fact-checking. Provide a short explanation of how your organization strives to maintain coherent standards across fact checks.
Since we started working with fact-checking in 2010, we have strongly pursued fairness through balancing both our fundings and our fact-checks. That’s why we fact check politicians from both the government and the opposition. You can find more about our values regarding nonpartisanship and fairness in http://chequeado.com/quienes-somos/
We try to reflect the different sides of the political spectrum through our fact-checks, and we do a weekly control of the balance shown in the website. We have been quoted by officialist and opposition leaders (we can provide proof of this if needed). We also think it is important to fact-check other parts of the political debate, not only politicians. That’s why we also analyze the statements made by the media and other opinion leaders.
- http://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/capitanich-washington-dc-tiene-mas-tasa-de-mortalidad-infantil-que-la-argentina/
- http://chequeado.com/investigaciones/macri-recibio-3-millones-de-contratistas-del-estado-para-su-campana-electoral/
- http://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/pena-bajamos-impuestos-por-16-puntos-del-pbi-una-de-las-bajas-mas-importantes-que-se-haya-hecho/
- http://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/pena-hay-una-tendencia-a-la-baja-de-la-inflacion/
- http://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/cfk-los-rendimientos-de-los-plazos-fijos-y-el-merval-se-ubicaron-muy-por-encima-de-los-de-la-compra-de-dolares-inclusive-el-ilegal/
- http://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/macri-el-lago-escondido-tiene-mejor-acceso-que-el-que-tenia-antes-de-que-joe-lewis-compre-esa-propiedad/
- http://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/camano-el-gobierno-de-macri-es-el-que-mas-ministerios-ha-creado/
- http://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/massa-se-bajaron-las-retenciones-y-sin-embargo-cayo-8-el-empleo-del-sector-minero/
- http://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/la-nacion-cristina-kirchner-anuncio-en-2012-la-compra-de-26-aviones-para-incendios-pero-no-llego-ninguno/
- http://chequeado.com/ultimas-noticias/cfk-el-45-de-la-poblacion-argentina-esta-en-las-universidades-y-35-estan-en-las-universidades-publicas-y-gratuitas/
Based on the given examples, Chequeado checks statements of politicians, further public figures and media likewise (primarily national, but also international), and covers a wide range of topics. The organization declares non-partisanship and unbiasedness to be a key foundation of its work and takes care of this requirement by establishing a balance in terms of political affiliation in the process of selecting statements as well as in their publication (on a weekly basis). These efforts are apparent on various "front pages" of the website in the last year. Of course, the current president of Argentina - Mauricio Macri - is more often subject then other politicians, especially since the organization keeps track of the promises of the government and their implementation. However, taken into account the fact-checks of the last year, there no indication of unduly one-sidedness or political partisanship
Nonpartisanship policy Evidence required: Please share evidence of your policy preventing staff from direct involvement in political parties and advocacy organizations. Please also indicate the policy your organization has as a whole regarding advocacy and supporting political candidates.
Our team members certainly have different point of views, and we embrace this diversity as long as they’re not affiliated to a party. We do ask them to leave their affinities aside every time they start investigating an issue, and every piece is revised by several members of the staff, so we can limit any possible personal bias. To assure our independence, we don’t accept donations from political parties or national government offices, and our Board has no government officials among it. On our site, we disclose special situations regarding personal relations that might present a conflict of interest. For example, I am married to a Mayor from the national ruling party and we state that in our site - http://chequeado.com/equipo/
Chequeado accepts and welcomes political diversity of its member, but demands absolute objectivity and independence when it comes to fact-checking. The organization applies different measures to prevent personal bias and other exertion of influence. On the hand, the verification process relies heavily on team-work minimizing the risk that strong individual world views define the output. Moreover, the articles get revised by the editor or long-time members of the organization before publications, and potential conflict of interests get disclosed. On the other hand, the management has to report once a year to the board, which comprises mainly academics and no government officials (http://chequeado.com/autoridades/). In addition, the organization applies strict rules concerning donations and its funding in general in order to avoid financial influence (see below).
Section 3 : TRANSPARENCY OF SOURCES
To be eligible to be a signatory, applicants must meet this criteria
Sources Policy Please share a brief and public explanation (500 words max) of how sources are provided in enough detail that readers could replicate the fact check. If you have a public policy on how you find and use sources for your fact-checking, it should be shared here.
We have an eight step method that is published on our website so that anyone can replicate the work we have done. Part of the method consists of contacting the person who made the statement, consulting the relevant official sources and alternative sources. We clearly state the name and position of each person, and any conflict of interest that they might have (if they worked in a former administration or are if they advise a political party, for example). We don’t use anonymous sources or off the records. We also use documents and studies as evidence in our pieces. In those cases we provide links to the complete document. When we use databases, these are also linked so that anyone can corroborate their validity.
We take special care of balancing our sources in each piece, but we also have an internal system to monitor that our sources are balanced in the long term. For this, we fill (confused about “fill”) information in each piece about the specialists so that we can then analyze how many of them come from private universities, public universities or NGOs, among others.
Chequeado discloses the sources used in its articles as a matter of principle, either by hyperlinks or by detailed written information. This policy holds true for the statement in question, which origin is indicated at the beginning of each article and backed up by a video, an audio-recording or any other sort of source document in nearly all cases. Moreover, all further sources used in the article - no off-the-record or anonymous sources - are clearly documented and, where possible, assessable by hyperlink. Additional information about the quality of the source including potential conflicts of interest are amended, where necessary.
Section 4 : TRANSPARENCY OF FUNDING & ORGANIZATION
To be eligible to be a signatory, applicants must meet these three criteria
Funding Sources Evidence required: Please link to the section where you publicly list your sources of funding (including, if they exist, any rules around which types of funding you do or don't accept), or a statement on ownership if you are the branch of an established media organization or research institution.
http://chequeado.com/financiamiento/
http://chequeado.com/rendicion-de-cuentas/
We don’t accept donations from national government offices or political parties.
Chequeado does not accept any donations from national government offices or political parties and applies strict transparency rules to its financing. It differentiates between donations by individuals and companies, grants of international (aid) organizations, revenues based on its own activities (like teaching or media related services), and its annual fundraising event. For every year, the organization discloses its overall budget and names all sources of income on its website (http://chequeado.com/financiamiento/). Additionally, the annual financial statements of the foundation as required within the legal framework of non-profit organizations are uploaded to the website, too, and allow the public to examine the organization`s spending (http://chequeado.com/rendicion-de-cuentas/).
Staff Evidence required: Please link to the section detailing all authors and key actors behind your fact-checking project with their biographies. You can also list the name and bios of the members of the editorial board, pool of experts, advisory board, etc. if your organization has those.
All key/permanent members of the organization are clearly listed with their name, position, a short biographies and email. Where applicable, LinkedIn and Twitter profile are complemented. The group of volunteers - mostly students - are listed by their names. Similar the board members, though most of them provide additional information concerning their carriers.
Contact Evidence required: Please link to the section where readers can get in touch with the organization.
As stated above, all key members of the organization provide an email address to contact them directly. Furthermore, a "zone de intercambio" on the project´s website offers various ways of exchange including a simple entry form to submit a message. In addition, every article has a comment function, where readers can leave a statement. A further contact button at the bottom of the website is accessible on all pages of the website.
Section 5 : TRANSPARENCY OF METHODOLOGY
To be eligible to be a signatory, applicants must meet these two criteria
Detailed Methodology Evidence required: Please link to a section or article detailing the steps you follow for your fact-checking work.
Chequeado explains its methodology in great detail but easy understandable way (http://chequeado.com/metodo/). The information are clearly structured into 8 steps and, as stated above by the signatory, made public with the objective to provide an approach by which readers can reproduce the fact-checks by themselves
Claim submissions Evidence required: Please link to the page or process through which readers can submit claims to fact-check. If you do not allow this, please briefly explain why.
http://chequeado.com/contacto/
Every article has its comments section, and we also published Laura’s email address to receive recommendations or corrections.
Readers can submit a claim to fact-check by the entry form in the "zone de intercambio"-section or by writing an email directly to the director/editor-in-chief as noticed in the methodology section. However, there are no information at this point (“Pedí un Chequeo”) about what readers can legitimately expect will be fact-checked and what isn`t fact-checkable.
Section 6 : OPEN & HONEST CORRECTIONS POLICY
To be eligible to be a signatory, applicants must meet these two criteria
Corrections policy Evidence required: Please link to the page with your policy to address corrections. If it is not public, please share your organization's handbook.
Chequeado dedicates a whole segment in its methodology to the issue of corrections and has accordingly an open and honest corrections policy.
Examples of corrections Evidence required: Please provide two examples of a correction made, or correction requests handled, in the past year.
We recently published an article (https://goo.gl/rfd2ou) correcting misinformation that was being shared online, as part of our initiative against fake news. The repercussions were not the ones we had expected so we corrected the way in which we presented the article, and acknowledged the situation in a post in our blog:
http://chequeado.com/por-que-sediceenlasredes-sera-de-aca-en-mas-falsoenlasredes/
In this article we corrected our graphics in response to our readers’ observations and pointed out that we did so.
The minister team acknowledged our correction, promising to improve their future communications with the data we had analyzed, and we added a paragraph indicating this.
The provided examples show the project takes this issue serious and revises those articles adding an "Actualización"-note that explains the error and the changes performed.
Here you can find our legal status: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByOtUTQOvuoIOFV5V0d5MkxZblU/view?usp=sharing