{"id":1993,"date":"2019-03-08T12:30:47","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T11:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/?p=1993"},"modified":"2019-08-26T17:04:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T16:04:06","slug":"how-do-you-fact-check-the-fact-checkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/how-do-you-fact-check-the-fact-checkers\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Fact-Check The Fact-Checkers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“As an editor, you develop a B.S. meter\u2014an internal warning system that signals caution about journalism that doesn’t feel trustworthy. Sometimes it’s a quote or incident that’s too perfect. Sometimes it’s too many errors of fact, the overuse of anonymous sources, or signs that a reporter hasn’t dealt fairly with people or evidence. And sometimes it’s a combination of flaws that produces a ring of falsity, the whiff of a bad egg<\/em>.” – Jacob Weisberg<\/span><\/p>\n

Fact checking is the process of cross-checking assertions or claims made by individuals, groups or institutions in order to determine the correctness of the statements.<\/span><\/p>\n

Several media outfits are already showing interest in the practice of fact-checking claims and in fact, fact-checking has now been promoted to the extent that fact-checkers show interest in fact-checking newspaper reports suspected to be untrue. <\/span><\/p>\n

The reason for this is to correct misconceptions and curb misinformation among citizens, as well as discourage politicians from spreading misinformation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who then checks the Fact-Checkers?<\/b><\/p>\n

In recent times, particularly during the electioneering period, fact-checkers focus more on debunking claims made by politicians and these fact-checkers are supposed to be unbiased authorities who dispense truth without fear or favour. Naturally, there is no regulation to govern the practice of fact-checking, however, there is an international body<\/a> whose members commit to abide by a number of codes of conduct hinged on excellence and transparency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can we then say Fact-Checkers don’t make mistakes?<\/b><\/p>\n

Of course, fact-checking platforms make mistakes and sometimes get their rating wrong. For example, Snopes, a fact-checking platform, in April 2018 published<\/a> that a business newspaper, Investors Business Daily,<\/a> had “resuscitated” a “false” claim about 3.5 million more registered voters than eligible voters. It was shared virally on social media and when the platform realized that its fact-check was not accurate, Snopes later rewrote<\/a> that section of its fact-check. It changed the ruling on the underlying claims from “false” to “mixture.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes, these mistakes don’t happen deliberately but because of work overload and simple human errors. For example, during the Saturday, February 23rd election, there was a mix up with links on Twitter in a check done by Dubawa. <\/span>A Twitter user uploaded two videos of election irregularities, we fact-checked one of the videos but unfortunately, put the link of another video that was not fact-checked. Having realized this, a quick rectification was done and we alerted the people involved. Mistakes are inevitable but a fact-check platform must be proactive in its response to errors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Corrections are not the only requirements of fact-checkers; originality is also paramount. Some newsrooms with supposed fact-checking units prefer to only republish fact-checks from other platforms without doing their own independent verification, apparently forgetting that journalists get their facts wrong almost as often as politicians. <\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers sometimes may be biased with their judgement and that’s why a fact-checking platform needs to do an integrity test for their staff before employing them. A review of all fact-checks must go through necessary steps in order not to further mislead the public who rush to you to get their claims right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since, a fact-checking platform is like a mirror of the people, those in the best position to fact-check the fact-checkers are the principal officers of any fact-checking platform who must make sure that researchers with no experience do not pass judgments on statements from the public that are unverifiable. <\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers should also do an independent fact-check on themselves to be sure that they are better informed about the issues they fact-check.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers should do independent fact-checks on themselves to be sure that they are better informed about the issues they fact-check!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"hannibal_claim_source":"","hannibal_source_label":"","hannibal_card_color":"blue","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_bluesky_share_type":"","_mastodon_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[210],"tags":[347],"verdict":[],"ppma_author":[877],"class_list":["post-1993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","tag-featured"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R6dE-w9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":877,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"adejumokabir","display_name":"Adejumo Kabir","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8ebf7a14094ac13bdfbd74c154fc30ad37b33c9250bbfb98ef356e901521ffdd?s=96&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Kabir","first_name":"Adejumo","job_title":"","description":"Adejumo Kabir<\/strong> is a student journalist at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. He is a great researcher with many investigative journalism awards to his name. He loves community journalism and supports all aspects of public enlightenment. He has experience writing well-researched papers for online publications. He was Finalist for Best Student Fact Checker category of the African Fact Checking Awards, South Africa in 2018."}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/factchecker.png?fit=1000%2C600&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1993"},{"taxonomy":"verdict","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verdict?post=1993"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}