Summarize Media Fact-checking

Summary:

There are multiple organizations that work on checking whether the facts and information communicated to us is true or false. This is known as fact-checking.

I read about two organizations and how they do fact-checking. The first organization is Politifacts, which has a team of journalists carefully looking for significant statements in all kinds of possible platforms all the way from speeches to social media. Politifacts emphasizes original documentation and primary sources. When fact-checking, this organization also gives the statement a “Truth-O-Meter” rating based on how true or false it is; the ratings are true, mostly true, half true, mostly false, false, and pants on fire (a ridiculous claim). After fact-checking, a group of three editors and a reporter reviews it and vote to decide if it should be published.

The second organization is FactCheck.org, where the topics are chosen depending on what is more relevant depending on the election cycle, focusing mainly on the president, the congress, and presidential candidates during election years. This organization tries to write equal material about Democrats and Republicans using resources such as interviews, TV ads, remarks, transcripts, and campaigns among others. Their research team starts their work by going through their resources where the first thing they look for is statements based on facts, from there they will start looking for evidence through the person or organization that is being fact-checked, but in case that the statement ends up being accurate the team will move on; however, if the statement turns out to be false the team will begin doing further research. For their sources of information, they use the Library of Congress for congressional testimony, the House Clerk and Senate Secretary’s office for roll call votes, The Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a lot more like trustworthy outside experts. The sources of information they rely on are nonpartisan. The last step is the editing, their team checks the story where the content, grammar and fact-checking is reviewed.

Reflection

Date: 10/24/2021

I think is actually very important the work this kind of organizations are doing by making sure the public is being delivered the right information in such an important area which is politics and being aware of the existence of this kind of organizations can help us learn and makes us think further about our biases and the leaders we are supporting. Being well informed on what is going on in the congress, and about future candidates for the elections is vital for everyone and young people like me because we are the ones that will be choosing the people that will govern our country in the future.

Sources:

FactCheck.org - Our Process https://www.factcheck.org/our-process/

Politifact - The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter: PolitiFact’s methodology for independent fact-checking https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/feb/12/principles-truth-o-meter-politifacts-methodology-i/