Fact-checking is a vital way to build trust, defend our work, and check the creep of biases. It means asking, “What do we know, really? And how do we know it?” This collection offers practical suggestions for bulletproofing your work on deadline, plugging holes in a long-term project, and testing a data analysis. It also includes writing about the fundamental ideas behind verification as well as why it is so important that we make time for fact-checking our own work. Articles
The Lesson from the Dress Color Debate That Every Journalist Needs to KnowBy Craig Silverman, PoynterOne of the leading thinkers on verification in journalism is Craig Silverman, formerly of Poynter and BuzzFeed. In this piece, he uses the infamous internet debate about the color of a dress to explain how our brains are rigged against us, why it is so easy to make errors inadvertently, and what we can do to check our work for those flaws.
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The New Yorker’s Chief Fact-Checker on How to Get Things Right in the Era of ‘Post-Truth’By Shelley Hepworth, Columbia Journalism ReviewMagazines—specifically, Time and the New Yorker—are widely credited with developing the form of tedious fact-checking that became a profession unto itself after a major court case. It has not been as popular among reporters at newspapers, TV stations, and digital outlets. In a recent talk, Peter Canby, “a stalwart of the legendary fact-checking department of The New Yorker,” reviewed the history of the work at that publication since 1978 and under three editors.
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Online Media Are More a Part of the Problem of Misinformation ‘Than They Are the Solution’By Kristen Hare, PoynterIn this Poynter piece, Kristen Hare summarizes key takeaways from a report...