The week in fact checking: Digital detectives, California fish stories, and #TwitterLies

The American Press Institute presents a roundup from the world of fact checking, debunking and truth telling — just in case you haven’t been paying as much attention as we do.

The technology of fact checking 
This week, Twitter and other social media have been inundated by reports from two breaking news stories: the Nepal earthquake and the Baltimore riot. The flood of unverified reports has put fact-checking tools to the test. Verily, a product that’s enabling volunteers to quickly become “digital detectives,” is debunking false rumors from Nepal. And TinEye is being used to call out fake photos from the Baltimore protest zone. Read it.

Fact check of the week
If you’re on Medicaid and you’re scheduled for surgery, a recent statement by Florida legislator Richard Corcoran (R-Land O’ Lakes) probably didn’t calm your nerves: “Medicaid patients are 97 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance.” Read PolitiFact Florida’s examination, and you’ll feel better. Read it.

Research
#TwitterLies, as FactCheck.org says, and new research released by the American Press Institute this week doesn’t dispute that. The studies indicate that journalists have their work cut out for them: Tweets containing misinformation outnumber 3-to-1 those tweets that try to correct the misinformation; and many Americans hold some odd ideas about major policy issues. Read it.

Fact checking for good
“There are more black men in jail than college.” “It’s mostly black people on food stamps.” “Black women have more children out of wedlock.” Those are the kinds of statements that need investigation, context and a “counterbalance,” say students at Howard University. And they plan to provide it through HU Insight, a project that was named a winner this week in the Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education. Read it.

Fact checking around the world
With voting just days away, fact checkers in the UK are making a final push to get information out to citizens who are dealing with a particularly noisy election. FullFact, an organization staffed by volunteer and professional fact checkers working 18 hours a day/seven days a week, has launched podcasts to help parse the rhetoric. Listen to it.

The fact-checking gold mine
The fish stories about the California drought are overtaking the fact checking, a problem that one resident calls “a bad game of Whack-A-Mole.” Writer and radio host Bruce Maiman says that as soon as one false rumor is struck down, others pop up. He decided to check the latest claim on his own: a viral rumor that one little fish is causing the depletion of nearly 5 billion gallons of water a day. Read it.

Behind the fact check
Good journalists have at least a minor phobia about making mistakes, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s also justified. These days, for reasons ranging from staff cuts to social media, journalists have even more opportunities to screw up the facts. Writing for Columbia Journalism Review, Monica Guzman examines how to turn fear into a motivator. Read it.

Quote of the week
“An educated voter is an empowered voter. Our local media must put in the work to bolster a more informed electorate, better disposed to taking the bit in their teeth.” Paolo Kernahan, columnist for the Guardian

For media organizations: Did your newsroom publish fact-checking articles during the 2014 midterm election season? Are you publishing fact-checks currently? We can help you determine the impact of that content. Contact us.

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