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Historical Shifts and Present Tensions: Reconfiguring the Fact-Checking Field Between Political Accountability and Debunking Online

Changements historiques et tensions contemporaines : la reconfiguration du champ du fact-checking entre responsabilité politique et démystification en ligne
Joseph Beaudreau

Abstracts

The seismic, unanticipated electoral events in 2016 spotlighted the pervasive challenge of disinformation, signaling a need to reconfigure fact-checking practices. This article investigates the evolution and perceived convergence of political fact-checking and debunking methodologies post-2016. This research identifies a significant shift in fact-checking by employing a multi-dimensional method that combines historical analysis with observations from global fact-checking conferences and reviews of fact-checking organizations’ practices. Initially, political fact-checkers, who focused on elite political discourse, and debunkers, who addressed internet rumors and urban legends, operated on distinct spheres. However, the spread of digital disinformation forced a reconfiguration of the field, challenging traditional boundaries and sparking debates within the fact-checking community.
This convergence has been illustrated by debates at professional conferences and the increasing dependence on social media platforms for distribution and revenue, highlighting the tension between maintaining journalistic integrity and adapting to the demands of the digital age. This article emphasizes the historical context as essential to understanding these distinctions and critically evaluates the consequences of this convergence for the effectiveness and future direction of fact-checking in combatting digital disinformation. It highlights the need for an approach beyond traditional boundaries, supporting a model combining political fact-checking and debunking strengths. This historical and analytical investigation offers valuable perspectives on the shifting environment of digital journalism, highlighting the need for innovative approaches to improve public discussion and trust in an era governed by digital information.

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Introduction

  • 1 European Commission and Content and Technology Directorate-General for Communication Networks, A Mu (...)
  • 2 Michelle A. Amazeen, “Practitioner Perceptions: Critical Junctures and the Global Emergence and Cha (...)

1In 2016, seismic political events such as Brexit and Donald Trump’s election reshaped the global political landscape and increased the attention on disinformation, heralding a significant reconfiguration of the field of fact-checking. What was once a niche journalistic practice emerged as a frontline defense against a growing tide of disinformation.1 This shift was most noticeable in the United States, the base of contemporary fact-checking. The work of political fact-checking organizations, like PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and the Washington Post Fact-Checker, largely revolved around elite political discourse within the mainstream media. This approach, rooted in a journalistic reform movement, focused on high-level public discourse, echoing the broader political narratives prevalent in media and politics.2 Suddenly, they faced new challenges in an increasingly digital world dominated by rumors and disinformation.

2The 2016 rise of Donald Trump brought this gap into sharp relief. Trump’s unique communication style depended on social media, which highlighted the limitations of traditional fact-checking methods. Their focus on elite political discourse missed the undercurrents in internet culture shaping public opinion. In the following years, the emergence of the QAnon conspiracy from the depths of internet forums and the rampant spread of COVID-19 disinformation demonstrated the growing complexity of public discourse. These developments underscored the necessity for a broader approach to fact-checking that extends beyond political statements and addresses the diverse array of online disinformation.

3The post-2016 era, focused on in this study, marks not just an expansion in the scope of fact-checking but a fundamental shift in its nature and methodology. Central to this shift was integrating debunking methods into political fact-checking practices, a development exemplified by platforms such as Snopes. Initially dedicated to countering urban legends and internet rumors, debunking fact-checkers have become increasingly vital in addressing the kinds of disinformation that traditional political fact-checkers often overlooked.

Statement of the Problem

4Amid the backdrop of declining media trust and waves of industry layoffs that began in the 1990s, contemporary fact-checking branched into two critical historical trajectories: debunking fact-checkers and political fact-checkers. Debunking fact-checkers emerged from grassroots efforts as citizen journalists, employing early forms of what would later be developed as Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) methods. Meanwhile, political fact-checkers originated from a journalistic reform movement aiming to elevate professional standards within the media. These parallel organic developments underscored the growing demand for information accuracy with different approaches, each with its unique methodology and historical context. Their paths would increasingly merge after 2016, with increasing tensions around how to define fact-checking.

  • 3 Bell, Fergus et al., "The Elephant in the Room: Fact-Checking vs Verification." Panel discussion at (...)

5In 2020, at the annual global summit of fact-checkers, Global Fact, a panel was held about the differences between political fact-checking and debunking.3 This event revealed a tense debate within the global fact-checking community, especially with the rise of social media platforms that partner with fact-checking networks.

6Debunking and political fact-checkers have different focuses and targets for their work. Debunking fact-checkers focus on online content that is not related to elite political discourse but rather to ordinary people’s everyday lives and interests. They address the claims and questions that arise from social media platforms, online communities, and personal networks. Debunking fact-checkers aim to educate and empower the public to evaluate critically the information they encounter online and to prevent the spread of misinformation and disinformation that can harm individuals and society. Debunking fact-checkers adopt a bottom-up and participatory approach to fact-checking, where they solicit and respond to the requests and feedback of their audiences and involve them in the verification process.

7Political fact-checkers focus on elite political discourse, such as speeches, debates, interviews, and press releases. They target the statements and claims of political leaders, parties, and institutions and assess their credibility and accountability. Political fact-checkers aim to inform and influence public opinion while challenging the power and privilege of political actors. Political fact-checkers also aspire to improve political journalism’s quality and standards and foster a more rational and civil political culture. Political fact-checkers adopt a top-down and authoritative approach to fact-checking, where they select and prioritize the topics and sources they deem relevant and provide their audiences with largely definitive and conclusive judgments.

  • 4 Lucas Graves, Valérie Bélair-Gagnon, and Rebekah Larsen, “From Public Reason to Public Health: Prof (...)

8As digital disinformation proliferates, political fact-checkers have been compelled to adapt beyond their original scope. Political fact-checkers are concerned that debunking online content takes away resources and time from their core mission of holding political leaders accountable.4 They also worry that debunking trivial or sensational topics may undermine the credibility and reputation of fact-checking as a serious and professional activity. Debunking fact-checkers, on the other hand, argue that debunking online content is a valuable and relevant service, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where misinformation and disinformation about vaccines and other issues have had serious consequences. They also claim that debunking diverse and popular topics can attract and engage more audiences and increase the visibility and impact of fact-checking.

9This article identifies a critical gap in understanding how political fact-checkers and debunking fact-checkers—originally distinct practices—have converged in methodology and focus post-2016. The contention within the fact-checking community, exemplified by debates at Global Fact 7, underscores a need to explore these practices’ historical evolution and their adaptation to the digital disinformation landscape. This article examines the distinctions and overlaps between political fact-checking and debunking, investigating the forces driving their convergence and the implications for digital journalism.

Research Question

10Considering the debate within the fact-checking community, how have differing methodologies and foci between political fact-checking and debunking influenced their evolution and perceived convergence post-2016? What are the implications of this tension for the effectiveness and future direction of fact-checking in combating digital disinformation?

11This study critically examines the underlying strains between political and debunking fact-checking, highlighted by critical debates among practitioners and scholars. By unpacking these divergences and their convergence in the post-2016 digital disinformation context, this article aims to offer nuanced insights into the challenges and opportunities facing the fact-checking community. Understanding these dynamics is vital for developing more effective strategies against disinformation, ultimately contributing to a more informed public discourse and enhancing trust in digital journalism.

Methodology

12This study employs a multi-dimensional methodology to explore the evolution and convergence of political fact-checking and debunking. First, a historical analysis grounded in the political economy of media and communication framework is utilized to trace the development of fact-checking practices, identifying fundamental shifts and trends that have influenced their trajectory. This approach provides a macro-level understanding of the socio-economic factors that have shaped the field of fact-checking.

13Observations from attending global fact-checking conferences offer a micro-level view, as I witnessed live debates and discussions among fact-checkers. This firsthand insight is helpful for understanding current tensions and perspectives within the community. Additionally, the study reviews descriptions of work and methodologies provided by fact-checking organizations, alongside an analysis of selected fact-checking articles from debunking and political fact-checkers. This dual review approach allows for a nuanced examination of the practical applications of fact-checking methodologies and how they have adapted in response to the challenges posed by digital disinformation.

14Together, these methods provide a comprehensive framework for investigating the complexities of fact-checking practices, ensuring a well-rounded analysis that addresses the study’s research question and objectives.

Reassessing the Evolution: Bridging the Gap in Fact-Checking Histories

  • 5 Lucas Graves, Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism, Kob (...)
  • 6 William Aspray and James W. Cortada, From Urban Legends to Political Fact-Checking: Online Scrutiny (...)

15Fact-checking has garnered significant academic attention, although, primarily, it has focused on fact-checking efforts and effectiveness. From a historical perspective, Lucas Graves conducted ground-breaking research on the origins of fact-checking in 2013 and 2016.5 Graves’ work, pivotal for understanding the pre-2016 landscape of political fact-checking, nonetheless leaves a gap regarding the role and methodologies of debunking entities like Snopes, which play a critical role in combating online disinformation. Complementing this, the work of William Aspray and James W. Cortada (2019) delves into the history of early digital debunkers, with a particular focus on Snopes. Their exploration from a computing history perspective enriches the narrative around online scrutiny and disinformation before 2016 but does not note the convergence that would follow.6

  • 7 Graves, Bélair-Gagnon, and Larsen, “From Public Reason to Public Health.”

16The recent exploration by Graves et al. into debunking and its critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic further illuminates the contemporary advancements and existing tensions within the fact-checking community.7 This work notably contributes to understanding how debunking practices have been central in addressing pandemic-related disinformation. However, while this article provides valuable insights into the present state of debunking, it stops short of fully contextualizing the history of debunking fact-checkers within the broader evolution of fact-checking. This gap underscores the need for a comprehensive historical analysis that situates both debunking and political fact-checking within a continuous narrative of development and adaptation in response to shifting information landscapes.

Continual Configuration of Fact-checking

Objectivity

  • 8 Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, "Journalism of Verification," in The Elements of Journalism: What N (...)

17Fact-checking as a practice of journalism arose out of a 20th-century reform movement, which created the tenant of objectivity. In 1920, in the spirit of scientific process, Walter Lippman argued that journalism would destroy U.S. democracy if it did not remain objective. Examining evidence and verifying facts should be a fundamental principle in professional journalism.8

  • 9 Sarah Harrison Smith, introduction to The Fact Checker’s Bible: A Guide to Getting It Right, ebook (...)
  • 10 Graves, introduction to Deciding What’s True.

18In 1923, Time magazine was founded with an internal research department full of editorial fact-checkers. The department was staffed exclusively with women who would verify names, dates, and other facts found in the journalists’ notes. They would also mark other news of interest for the journalist.9 The weeklies New Yorker and Reader’s Digest followed Time’s standard in the following years. This new approach involved a team of fact-checkers reviewing an article to verify its accuracy. While this provided an additional layer of scrutiny, it also led to disputes between fact-checkers and journalists over which facts were defensible.10

  • 11 Kovach and Rosenstiel, "Journalism of Verification," in The Elements of Journalism.

19The core premise, of course, was not the fact-checkers themselves but objectivity as a method of investigation. The principle of objectivity was taught in journalism schools as a core function of a professional. However, over the years, it became confused with neutrality in practice, as Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel discussed in their landmark work The Element of Journalism. This impartiality, masquerading as objectivity, was criticized by many journalists and media critics.11

  • 12 Andrew Kohut et al., “Press Widely Criticized, But Trusted More than Other Information Sources,” Pe (...)
  • 13 “Striking the Balance, Audience Interests, Business Pressures and Journalists’ Values,” Pew Researc (...)

20Since 1985, The Pew Research Center’s surveys have highlighted a growing disillusionment with the media in the United States, particularly concerning accuracy. Public perception has increasingly viewed the press as biased and inaccurate.12 By 1999, even journalists and news media executives acknowledged these concerns, pointing out significant issues such as sloppy reporting, declining standards, and a tendency towards sensationalism, reflecting a critical self-awareness within the industry about these challenges.13

  • 14 Craig Silverman, "The Birth (and Slow Death) of Magazine Fact Checking," in Regret the Error: How M (...)
  • 15 Smith, "Checking Resources," in The Fact Checker’s Bible.
  • 16 Elizabeth Grieco, “Decade-Long Decline in Newsroom Employment Hit Midcareer Workers the Hardest,” P (...)

21However, in the late 1990s, financial and business pressures were a growing concern for journalists as newsroom layoffs, especially in print media, became more frequent. This led to the dwindling of internal fact-checkers and researchers. In 1996, Time and Newsweek eliminated their research departments to create a system where the author alone checked their work.14 By 2004, only 50 percent of articles at Time were being reviewed by editorial fact-checkers, increasing the pressure and work of journalists.15 The layoffs of journalists and editorial staff would only continue throughout the next two decades.16

Pre-2016

Debunking Fact-Checkers: Citizen Journalists

  • 17 Aspray and Cortada, From Urban Legends to Political Fact-Checking, 98–101.

22The debunking fact-checkers first started as myth-busting of urban legends, almost as a form of alternative media during the rise of the early Internet. In the early 1990s, online chat forums were a rising subculture that pre-date social media but were smaller in scope due to limited internet access. There was a popular current in US culture in the 80s and 90s, where urban legends and shocking stories based on rumors were spread. A famous example was the urban legend about alligators living in the sewers of New York City, which demonstrates the mysterious, titillating nature of these rumors.17 Some forums started dedicating threads to trying to analyze the accuracy and plausibility of these myths. These soon expanded to tackle “erumors” and other online hoaxes.

  • 18 William Faulkner and George Garrett, Snopes: A Trilogy, Modern library ed édition (New York: Modern (...)
  • 19 Aspray and Cortada, From Urban Legends to Political Fact-Checking, 24.
  • 20 Aspray and Cortada, 24.

23One group that was born out of that era was Snopes.com, a website started by David and Barbara Mikkelson almost a decade before the elite political fact-checkers, like PolitiFact. The name Snopes was the username of David Mikkelson in the Alt.folklore.urban (AFU) Usenet forums and was a reference to the Snopes family, who were central characters in a series of books by William Faulkner.18 In 1995, as the Internet went public, the Mikkelsons, active in the AFU forums, decided to create a reference page for all the urban legends discussed in the forums but using an URL that was easier to access for users of this new worldwide web.19 The Mikkelsons built their website using the information taken directly from the forums. Many members of the AFU community were upset since the forums were built collectively.20

  • 21 Aspray and Cortada, 28.

24The Mikkelsons had no journalism background; they were knowledge-seeking hobbyists. In the early years of Snopes, they survived off David’s income as a software developer and ran the website. Their primary resource in the search to answer online mysteries was the California State University library or freedom of information requests. Eventually, Snopes became a full-time job for the Mikkelsons, and in 2010, with over 300,000 visits a day, they began to hire staff.21

25While Snopes became the most significant debunking fact-checker, other reference sites from the 1990s were dedicated to documenting hoaxes, including Hoaxbusters.org and TruthOrFiction.com. Most of these sites survived off ad revenue and contributors remained hobbyists. Except for Snopes, nearly all the old debunking fact-checkers would close or go silent before the disinformation crisis. For example, Hoaxbusters.org closed at the end of 2016 after 17 years. In a final letter to the audience, the author expressed apparent dismay:

The tenor of hoaxes has changed through the years. These days, it’s all about conspiracy theories and political misinformation. Those types of hoaxes are spread by folks whose only interest is in reading news that conforms to their point of view. No matter the actual facts, people will believe what they want to, and truth is irrelevant.22

26Truth or Fiction was founded by professional journalist Rich Buhler in 1999 with a mission to help internet users navigate “erumors,” urban legends, and other online hoaxes. It went quiet after the passing of its founder in 2012 and was only updated occasionally by his family. It was reinvigorated when Brooke Binkowski, a former managing editor at Snopes, joined in 2018, bringing with her Kim LaCapria, another former Snopes journalist. They aimed to provide contextualized fact-checks that follow viral information, current events, and other reportage. In a true debunking style, they claimed: “No story is too frivolous, because we have seen even the most trite urban legend twisted in new ways to serve a narrative.”23

  • 24 Barbara Mikkelson, “Hand Dryers Spread Disease,” Snopes.com, November 20, 2009, accessed June 30, 2 (...)

27A Snopes article from 2009, titled “Hand Dryers Spread Disease,” illustrates the average methodology and focus of debunking fact-checkers while also demonstrating their value.24 Barbara Mikkelson began by citing in full an e-mail chain that claimed hand dryers in restrooms spread bacteria, and they were responsible for spreading H1N1, ending with: “Please pass this along so everyone knows not to use hand dryers.” In response, Mikkelson labeled this claim as “undetermined.” She walked through specific claims in the long e-mail that could be disproven, like the claim that the CDC was telling establishments to remove all hand dryers. While citing different academic studies, Mikkelson emphasized that it is evident in the science that insufficient handwashing causes the spread of bacteria, whether through hand dryers or towels, and she detailed good handwashing techniques. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, this type of fact-check could have seemed frivolous or silly, but it highlights the utility that debunkers serve when the public faces a rumor online.

  • 25 Graves, Bélair-Gagnon, and Larsen, “From Public Reason to Public Health.”

28Unlike political fact-checkers, whose role was eventually recognized by media peers and academics, the path to recognition of debunkers was much longer. After 2016, however, debunkers’ attention to online narratives proved astute. Conspiracies like Pizzagate and QAnon demonstrated that online discourse could have a political impact. Especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus and methods of debunking substantiated their utility. Despite these significant events post-2016, following internet rumors or e-mail chains still is not taken seriously by political fact-checkers unless there is a connection to political discourse. Some in the fact-checking community continue to regard debunking as an inferior endeavor and a waste of time.25

Political Fact-Checkers

Blogging and the “External Fact-Checkers”

  • 26 Silverman, Regret the Error.
  • 27 Craig Silverman, “The Rise of External Fact-Checking,” in Fact-Checking - Fakten finden, Fehler ver (...)

29“External fact-checking” is a term coined by Silverman, a journalist who launched a blog in 2004 called Regret the Error hosted by the Poynter Institute. His blog later became a book, documenting the decline of proofreaders, copyeditors, and internal fact-checkers in newsrooms nationwide. He lamented how this could lead to self-inflicted errors that injured the organization’s reputation and the information ecosystem in general.26 During this time, Silverman also witnessed a new form of journalism rising among bloggers, which he originally called “new checkers” before settling on “external fact-checkers.” He described this as a “culture of warring facts” in the United States that was simmering in the early 2000s.27

30With the rise of mass access to the Internet at the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, so came a new frontier in the battle of media narratives and facts. Blogs moved from being just personal diaries to websites run by upstart media critics and citizen journalists. Perhaps with the viewpoint of current social media and microblogging platforms where journalists face a daily barrage of good and bad faith criticisms, the bloggers of old seemed quaint. However, at the time, blogging created a very uncomfortable tension between journalists and their audiences, who suddenly could give critical feedback that was published anonymously. These blogs could be much more meticulous and vicious than letters to the editor.

31Facts were being weaponized, and the media and public leaders were becoming the targets. These bloggers were catching errors by the media much more frequently than were usually brought up in the corrections section. As the conservative blogger Ken Layne famously wrote: “It’s 2001, and we can Fact Check your ass. And you, like many in the Hate America movement, are no longer able to dress your wretched ‘reporting’ in fiction. We have computers. It is not difficult to Find You Out, dig?”28 Whether this was due to a greater quantity of mistakes or just a more significant amount of scrutiny is up for debate, but it was a shift in audience-press relations. Many sites which became mainstay media critics arose during this time, like Media Matters and Accuracy in Media. Famous online media sites also started as blogs in the early 2000s, such as Gawker and Gizmodo, although through acquisition, they have become something different than what they were originally conceived to be.

  • 29 Jay Rosen, “Bloggers vs. Journalists Is Over,” PressThink (blog), January 5, 2005, http://archive.p (...)

32The new bloggers, even the less hostile ones, were not respected by traditional journalists. In a formative essay written by media professor Jay Rosen in 2005, he described the media business as losing sovereignty of gate-keeping narratives and opinion.29 He documented the trend that the public was losing confidence in the idea that the mainstream press was objective. The ethics of objectivity was a cornerstone of American journalism, and bloggers challenged the reality of that ideal. 2005 marked a shift in the respectability of blogging with the founding of Huffington Post, and Garret Graff being the first blogger to get a White House press pass. Soon newspapers were creating dedicated blogs on their websites, bloggers were getting hired by mainstream media institutions, and some journalists even quit mainstream media to become professional bloggers.

33This history of blogging is not only crucial to setting the historical context of political fact-checking, but it also serves as a remarkable parallel to current media battles. One can insert Twitter and YouTube personalities in place of blogs to find analogies. Likewise, online platforms have specialized and offered ready-made designs for journalists who have been lured from secure media intuitions to monetized blogging.

Political Fact-Checkers

  • 30 Lucas Graves, Brendan Nyhan, and Jason Reifler, “Understanding Innovations in Journalistic Practice (...)

34As a journalistic reform movement, the three dominant political fact-checkers were born from this blogging movement: Fact-check.org, PolitiFact, and Washington Post’s Fact Checker. Although they adopted a blogging aesthetic, all three projects were founded by professionals who successfully created long-term operations and brands. These new fact-checkers were self-appointed referees of political discourse. With time, these outsiders would establish a new style of award-winning journalism emulated by traditional news organizations.30

  • 31 Graves, "Ink-Stained Fact-Checkers," in Deciding What’s True.

35Fact-check.org started in 2003 amid blogging’s “wild west moment.” Brook Jackson, a veteran journalist from the Wall Street Journal and CNN, teamed up with Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication (University of Pennsylvania). A unique element of Factcheck.org, especially among their peers in the 2000s, is that they receive their funding from a university, allowing them to avoid the economic pressures that traditionally haunt newsrooms.31 The organization’s mission statement, which emphasizes its role in serving the needs of democracy, has remained the same since its inception:

We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit, “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.32

  • 33 Jessica McDonald, “Trump Administration Distorts the Facts On Climate Report,” FactCheck.Org (blog) (...)

36FactCheck.org established a model for political fact-checking that was distinguished from their debunking colleagues. Starting with a blunt headline, they walked the reader through their review process with embedded links to their sources. In this manner, the reader can retrace the author’s steps and verify most of the information provided, which can also function as a tool for media literacy. For example, on December 26, 2018, they published an article: “Trump Administration Distorts the Facts on Climate Report.” Author Jessica McDonald wrote nearly 3,500 words challenging the Trump Administration’s misrepresentation of the EPA’s National Climate Assessment. Peppered with hyperlinks to sources as well as original interviews with experts, this is emblematic of political fact-checking’s journalistic standards.33

  • 34 Graves, "Ink-Stained Fact-Checkers," Deciding What’s True.

37PolitiFact and Washington Post’s Fact Checker came onto the scene in 2007 during the primaries for the 2008 presidential campaign. They followed FactCheck.org’s style in many ways, but one novel feature was a rating system: The Truth-O-Meter at PolitiFact and the Pinocchio system at the Fact Checker. This new concept of a scale to determine a claim’s veracity was a controversial subject at the time. There was considerable disagreement among the fact-checking community and researchers on its effectiveness and legitimacy. Fact-check.org’s Brook Jackson rejected the concept as unscientific.34 However, PolitiFact and the Fact Checker have remained committed to their rating systems and built their brands from them.

38The Washington Post’s Fact Checker started as a feature column by Michael Dobbs dedicated to the 2008 election, and then it was retired. Leading up to the 2012 election, Glenn Kessler took over, after which the Fact Checker became a permanent feature of the newspaper. Regular columns are printed every Sunday in the paper, but several articles are published weekly on its dedicated webpage. The Fact Checker prioritizes claims based on what the staff believes is most important for voters, with 50 % of the claims they decide to review coming from readers. Unlike other projects built around a newsroom, Kessler is the personification of the Fact Checker with a branding akin to a columnist. While he has always led a small team of varying size over the years, The Fact Checker website has “by Glen Kessler” on the title page and his biography is center in the “About” page.35

39In contrast, PolitiFact has built a national network. Leading up to the 2008 election, Bill Adair, the Washington Bureau Chief of the St. Petersburg Times (later the Tampa Bay Times), proposed the idea of PolitiFact. The impact of PolitiFact was immediate, and their work in the 2008 campaign won them the most prestigious award in American journalism: the Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting. It went from an election-year project to a full-time enterprise housed at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. PolitiFact has remained a non-profit supported by the Tampa Bay Times, content partnerships, grants, and donations from readers.

40In 2010, PolitiFact started to build partnerships with local newspapers allowing them to build bureaus dedicated to state-level issues and provide more scrutiny of local elections. While some of these partnerships did not last, PolitiFact still has a presence in 12 states. Dedicating resources to coverage outside the national level allowed PolitiFact to bring fact-checking to local issues. It was an essential step for the United States, a geographically large nation with a federal system leaving much of the political power far from Washington, DC. The network sets PolitiFact apart and has made it the most prominent organization with 36 listed staff in 2022. Although Bill Adair left as editor of PolitiFact in 2013, he has remained a dominant figure in fact-checking as the director of Duke University Reporters’ Lab, a project that focuses on fact-checking journalism and trust in media.

Post-2016

  • 36 “Poynter to Become Home of International Fact-Checking with Grant of Up To $225,000 from Omidyar Ne (...)
  • 37 “Introducing Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network,” Poynter (blog), October 21, 2015, http (...)

41Before the watershed year of 2016, foundational steps had already been taken to unify and standardize fact-checking practices globally. In June 2014, at the London School of Economics, a small group of fact-checkers, journalists, and academics held the first Poynter Institute’s Global Fact-Checking Summit (later known as “Global Fact”), an event organized by Bill Adair. At this point, political fact-checking in the United States had gained quite a bit of experience over the course of several elections, and PolitiFact had won a Pulitzer Prize for 2008 election coverage. With 29 active fact-checkers outside of North America, it was an opportunity to bring organizations together to discuss their experiences and begin sowing seeds that would set the standard for best practices. By the second summit in 2015, the Poynter Institute, based in Florida, announced that it would house a new website initiative thanks to $ 300,000 grants from Omidyar Network and the National Endowment for Democracy.36 In October 2015, director Alexios Mantzarlis announced the creation of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), a fact-checking resource dedicated to highlighting best practices, creating e-learning modules, organizing future summits, and defining ethics for the profession.37

42The call for a set of ethics for the field of fact-checking would be the act that solidified IFCN as the ultimate professional association of fact-checkers and debunkers around the globe, differentiating it from journalists in the process. In September 2016, a little over a year after its conception, the IFCN released its Code of Principles, signed by 35 organizations (six of which are in the United States) representing 27 countries. They created five principles that largely revolve around transparency in their methodology, sources, funding, as well as a commitment to non-partisanship, and establishing a correction policy. In the negotiations over the principles, the parties considered the various political and cultural situations in which different organizations found themselves, a complicated issue they continuously reevaluate.

  • 38 “An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg from the World’s Fact-Checkers,” Poynter (blog), November 17, 20 (...)
  • 39 “State of the Fact-Checkers Report 2022,” International Fact-Checking Network, April 2023, https:// (...)

43As Facebook faced significant public pressure following the election in November 2016, IFCN members wrote an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg encouraging him to hire fact-checkers and offering IFCN as a partner.38 In mid-December 2016, Facebook announced it would indeed be working with fact-checkers to flag posts in their newsfeed. With the creation of the Facebook Third Party Fact Checking Partnership, Facebook decided that only signatories of IFCN’s Code of Principles could be partners in this initiative. In October 2017, Google News Initiative followed Facebook’s example to build a partnership with IFCN; it provided training, translation tools, and access to free fact-checking tools for signatories. These agreements cemented IFCN as the authoritative organ of fact-checkers. Over the years, it would prove essential for fact-checking organizations to get funding through social network grants. According to a 2022 IFCN survey, more than 45.2 % of fact-checkers rely on Facebook’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program as their primary revenue source.39

  • 40 Sam Levin, “‘They Don’t Care’: Facebook Factchecking in Disarray as Journalists Push to Cut Ties,” (...)

44IFCN’s partnership with Facebook was not without controversy. In 2019, Snopes, an original partner with Facebook’s Fact-Checking initiative and the largest debunking organization, pulled out. Months earlier, Snopes’ former managing editor Brooke Binkowski, publicly spoke out about fact-checkers being used as a PR cover for Facebook. In a detailed interview in The Guardian, she gave the public insight into the relationship between Facebook and fact-checkers, going into detail about internal discussions around controversies such as the use of the social media platform in the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar.40 Another former Snopes employee Kim LaCapria also went on the record, but other fact-checkers quoted only shared their frustrations off the record.

  • 41 Joseph Beaudreau, “The Political Economy of Fact-Checking: From Hope to Reality Check,” in Disinfor (...)

45Despite the controversy, IFCN has reinforced its partnership with Facebook. It was observable at the Global Fact summits between 2020 and 2023 that the relationship between Facebook and IFCN has continued to solidify. IFCN has expressed confidence in Facebook’s commitment to fighting disinformation on their platform and has expanded their partnerships to other platforms like TikTok, Google, and YouTube.41

Debunking Becomes Dominant

  • 42 Bill Adair et al., “ClaimReview: It’s Not Just for Google and YouTube,” presentation at Global Fact (...)

46Since 2016, debunking has become an important part of every fact-checking organization. Of the three big political fact-checkers, FactCheck.org and PolitiFact are Facebook partners and participate more in responding to viral claims online than before. Traditional media organizations like USA Today, the Associated Press, and Reuters also partnered with Facebook to debunk claims on social media. With the rise of COVID-19, this shift was further cemented as rumors spread wildly on social media and the virus’s threat to the public was politicized and debated. Analysis of ClaimReview data shows that the output of fact-checks more than doubled in 2020, with 70 % of those fact-checks responding to social media claims, and the Associated Press was firmly the leading publisher.42 Due to these partnerships, most of the reviewed social media claims came from Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.

47In 2020, at Global Fact 7, Lucas Graves hosted an animated panel titled “The elephant in the room: Fact-checking vs. verification,” where the tensions about boundaries and practices between political fact-checkers and debunking became apparent. Giovanni Zagni, the director of the Italian fact-checker Pagella Politica, made a strong case that there are critical distinctions: differences in claims evaluated, tools used, sources relied on, and audiences targeted. He acknowledged that there could be some overlap in public figures being a source for debunkers or an online viral image being a source for political fact-checkers. However, typically, that was when a political figure or media outlet spread a viral claim. He described debunking as:

  • 43 Bell et al., "The Elephant in the Room."

largely a non-political operation, one operation that can gain a lot from being separated from politics and that overlaps with politics when one of those political figures, which by themselves are very visible, act as a super spreader of this false information, so that is basically my thinking on the issue.43

  • 44 Field Notes, June 23, 2020.

48However, Katie Sanders, the managing editor of PolitiFact, disagreed that there was a division. Journalists did not need to split their roles but could do both. She acknowledged that debunking had become a more significant part of their work post-2016 due to the Facebook agreement. She insisted that it was not new and there was evidence of PolitiFact debunking in the archive. Her primary examples were e-mail chains about Barack Obama in 2008 and a Facebook graphic about Romney in 2012. Though these pre-2016 examples shared qualities with debunking’s focus on viral rumors, these were still about election campaigns and they appeared to align with Zagni’s description of overlap. As the debate went on, it was observable in the online chatroom during the panel that many of the global fact-checkers in attendance agreed with Zagni that there was a significant difference in methods and focus.44 It is unresolved whether debunking is winning based on merits or due to Facebook’s oversized influence, but it is becoming a prevailing practice with the distinctions that Zagni described.

Conclusion

49Since 2016, the once-underappreciated necessity of debunking has gained prominence, underscored by its critical role in combating disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and conspiracies like Pizzagate and QAnon. This change, occurring alongside the decline of local journalism, has highlighted an increased need for an approach to fact-checking that values grassroots intelligence as much as elite political discourse. However, this increase in debunking indicates not only a development in approach but also significant pressure due to the political economy of social media platforms. This shift towards debunking, driven by social media partnerships, introduces significant concerns about the financial sustainability and independence of fact-checking organizations.

50From a political economy perspective, these partnerships, while expanding the reach and impact of fact-checking efforts, also risk entangling these organizations in the economic and political interests of platform giants. Snopes’ decision to exit its Facebook partnership points to a deeper tension within the field: the struggle to maintain autonomy and integrity amidst the lure of platform-driven traffic and revenue. Organizations like PolitiFact and FactCheck.org, that have embraced partnerships with Facebook, have acknowledged this difficult balance, but they are far more established and secure in resources compared to other fact-checkers.

  • 45 Beaudreau, “The Political Economy of Fact-Checking: From Hope to Reality Check.”

51Looking ahead, the sustainability of fact-checking—and journalism at large—lies in navigating the complex media ecosystem’s financial and political pressures, necessitating innovative models beyond the platforms that ensure independence. Further research is needed to explore the implications of social media partnerships on the global fact-checking ecosystem. This exploration should examine how fact-checking organizations outside the US are innovating within their cultural and political contexts, as well as their potential connection to IFCN. The rise of institutions like the European Fact-Checking Standards Network reveals a potential break from the US model.45 As the fact-checking movement grapples with these challenges, its capacity to serve as an effective tool for enhancing public discourse will depend on its ability to evolve within the constraints and opportunities presented by the political economy of digital information.

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Notes

1 European Commission and Content and Technology Directorate-General for Communication Networks, A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Disinformation: Report of the Independent High Level Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation, 2018, 36, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2759/739290; David M. J. Lazer et al., “The Science of Fake News: Addressing Fake News Requires a Multidisciplinary Effort. (Cover Story),” Science 359, no. 6380 (March 9, 2018): 1094–96, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2998.

2 Michelle A. Amazeen, “Practitioner Perceptions: Critical Junctures and the Global Emergence and Challenges of Fact-Checking,” International Communication Gazette 81, no. 6–8 (October 1, 2019): 541–61, https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048518817674.

3 Bell, Fergus et al., "The Elephant in the Room: Fact-Checking vs Verification." Panel discussion at GlobalFact7, online, June 23, 2020. GlobalFact7.com.

4 Lucas Graves, Valérie Bélair-Gagnon, and Rebekah Larsen, “From Public Reason to Public Health: Professional Implications of the ‘Debunking Turn’ in the Global Fact-Checking Field,” Digital Journalism, (June 16, 2023), 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2218454.

5 Lucas Graves, Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism, Kobo edition (Columbia University Press, 2016).

6 William Aspray and James W. Cortada, From Urban Legends to Political Fact-Checking: Online Scrutiny in America, 1990-2015, History of Computing (Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2019).

7 Graves, Bélair-Gagnon, and Larsen, “From Public Reason to Public Health.”

8 Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, "Journalism of Verification," in The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, 4th edition, ebook (New York: Crown, 2021).

9 Sarah Harrison Smith, introduction to The Fact Checker’s Bible: A Guide to Getting It Right, ebook (New York: Anchor Books, 2004).

10 Graves, introduction to Deciding What’s True.

11 Kovach and Rosenstiel, "Journalism of Verification," in The Elements of Journalism.

12 Andrew Kohut et al., “Press Widely Criticized, But Trusted More than Other Information Sources,” Pew Research Center, September 22, 2011, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2011/09/22/press-widely-criticized-but-trusted-more-than-other-institutions/.

13 “Striking the Balance, Audience Interests, Business Pressures and Journalists’ Values,” Pew Research Center, March 30, 1999, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/1999/03/30/striking-the-balance-audience-interests-business-pressures-and-journalists-values/.

14 Craig Silverman, "The Birth (and Slow Death) of Magazine Fact Checking," in Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech, ebook (Union Square Press, 2010).

15 Smith, "Checking Resources," in The Fact Checker’s Bible.

16 Elizabeth Grieco, “Decade-Long Decline in Newsroom Employment Hit Midcareer Workers the Hardest,” Pew Research Center, April 7, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/07/decade-long-decline-in-newsroom-employment-hit-midcareer-workers-the-hardest/.< accessed on July 7, 2022>

17 Aspray and Cortada, From Urban Legends to Political Fact-Checking, 98–101.

18 William Faulkner and George Garrett, Snopes: A Trilogy, Modern library ed édition (New York: Modern Library, 1994).

19 Aspray and Cortada, From Urban Legends to Political Fact-Checking, 24.

20 Aspray and Cortada, 24.

21 Aspray and Cortada, 28.

22 “Hoax Busters,” February 24, 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20180224234534/http://hoaxbusters.org/.

23 Rich Buhler & Staff, “Disclosures - Truth or Fiction?” https://www.truthorfiction.com/disclosures/.<accessed on June 29, 2022>

24 Barbara Mikkelson, “Hand Dryers Spread Disease,” Snopes.com, November 20, 2009, accessed June 30, 2022, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blowing-hard/.

25 Graves, Bélair-Gagnon, and Larsen, “From Public Reason to Public Health.”

26 Silverman, Regret the Error.

27 Craig Silverman, “The Rise of External Fact-Checking,” in Fact-Checking - Fakten finden, Fehler vermeiden: Dokumentation zur Nr-Fachkonferenz im Spiegel-Redaktionsgebäude in Hamburg am 27. und 28. März 2010, ed. Thomas Leif, Nr-Werkstatt, Nr. 16 (Hamburg: Netzwerk Recherche, 2010), 36–45.

28 Ken Layne, “Untitled,” KenLayne.Com (blog), December 9, 2001, https://web.archive.org/web/20011216191356/http://kenlayne.com/2000/2001_12_09_logarc.html#7775149.

29 Jay Rosen, “Bloggers vs. Journalists Is Over,” PressThink (blog), January 5, 2005, http://archive.pressthink.org/2005/01/21/berk_essy.html.

30 Lucas Graves, Brendan Nyhan, and Jason Reifler, “Understanding Innovations in Journalistic Practice: A Field Experiment Examining Motivations for Fact-Checking,” Journal of Communication 66, no. 1 (February 2016): 102–38, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12198.

31 Graves, "Ink-Stained Fact-Checkers," in Deciding What’s True.

32 “Our Mission,” FactCheck.Org (blog). https://www.factcheck.org/about/our-mission/.< accessed June 28, 2022>

33 Jessica McDonald, “Trump Administration Distorts the Facts On Climate Report,” FactCheck.Org (blog), December 26, 2018, https://www.factcheck.org/2018/12/trump-administration-distorts-the-facts-on-climate-report/.

34 Graves, "Ink-Stained Fact-Checkers," Deciding What’s True.

35 “Analysis | About The Fact Checker,” Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/01/07/about-fact-checker/.< accessed June 25, 2022>

36 “Poynter to Become Home of International Fact-Checking with Grant of Up To $225,000 from Omidyar Network, with Additional Support from National Endowment for Democracy | Poynter,” Archive.org, July 28, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20150728030437/http://about.poynter.org/about-us/press-room/poynter-home-of-international-fact-checking.

37 “Introducing Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network,” Poynter (blog), October 21, 2015, https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2015/fact-checkers-of-the-world-unite/.

38 “An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg from the World’s Fact-Checkers,” Poynter (blog), November 17, 2016, https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2016/an-open-letter-to-mark-zuckerberg-from-the-worlds-fact-checkers/.

39 “State of the Fact-Checkers Report 2022,” International Fact-Checking Network, April 2023, https://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/IFCN_2023_StateFactCheckers2022_v7a-1.pdf.

40 Sam Levin, “‘They Don’t Care’: Facebook Factchecking in Disarray as Journalists Push to Cut Ties,” The Guardian, December 13, 2018, sec. Technology, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/13/they-dont-care-facebook-fact-checking-in-disarray-as-journalists-push-to-cut-ties.

41 Joseph Beaudreau, “The Political Economy of Fact-Checking: From Hope to Reality Check,” in Disinformation Debunked: Building Resilience through Media and Information Literacy, ed. Divina Frau-Meigs and Nicoleta Corbu, 1st ed., Routledge Research in Media Literacy and Education (Routledge, 2024), https://www.routledge.com/Disinformation-Debunked-Building-Resilience-through-Media-and-Information/Frau-Meigs-Corbu/p/book/9781032481012.

42 Bill Adair et al., “ClaimReview: It’s Not Just for Google and YouTube,” presentation at Global Fact 9, OlsoMet University, Olso, Norway, June 23, 2022, GlobalFact9.com; Thomas Van Damme, “Global Trends in Fact-Checking: A Data-Driven Analysis of ClaimReview,” (master's thesis, University of Antwerp, 2021), https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.20039.37282.

43 Bell et al., "The Elephant in the Room."

44 Field Notes, June 23, 2020.

45 Beaudreau, “The Political Economy of Fact-Checking: From Hope to Reality Check.”

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References

Electronic reference

Joseph Beaudreau, Historical Shifts and Present Tensions: Reconfiguring the Fact-Checking Field Between Political Accountability and Debunking Online InMedia [Online], 10 | 2025, Online since 01 June 2025, connection on 17 July 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/inmedia/3393; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/145d9

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About the author

Joseph Beaudreau

Joseph Beaudreau, a doctoral candidate at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, is a research and teaching fellow at the Pléiade laboratory, Université Paris Sorbonne Nord. He also acts as treasurer of Savoir*Devenir. Contributing to the critical discourse on contemporary information disorders, he specializes in fact-checking, disinformation, and the political economy of communication. He was a lead researcher in the European Erasmus+ Fact-checking Project, mapping the state of disinformation studies in Europe and designing an online training course. https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6866-1421

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