U Sudhakar Reddy
Trends of independent Fact checking across the globe reveal that it has been growing as a strong institution of democracy in the age of post-truth politics and fake news scenario. Especially at the time when some politicians are debunking scientific concepts like Climate Change as a hoax, and a range of misinformation from political claims(especially during elections) to health is flooding the web, social media and instant messaging applications fact-checking have emerged as a new estate of democracy. While mainstream media has been hailed as Fourth Estate of Democracy for years recently, analysts termed social media like Facebook, Twitter and web media that includes blogging as Fifth Estate.
The credibility of information reaching public has touched a new low ebb due to the fake news in social media and 'superficial' journalism practices in mainstream media, that lacked in-depth fact checking though they supposed to keep a tab on Legislative, Executive and Judiciary the three pillars of democracy. Independent Fact-checking has now come in place to clean up the mess.
Apart from 115 independent active fact checkers including the pioneering ones like Full Fact and First Draft of UK; the news organisations, NGOs, that woke up to the need, not only in the Europe but Asia too have been setting up fact checking units in their firms.
For instance, Panos South Asia with its headquarters in Kathmandu, a reputed NGO working on environment issues like climate change in the context of Himalayas, has just published a job offer for a ‘female fact checker’ on its site. During the recent elections and referendums in US, France and now in UK agencies like Full Fact and First Draft have done exemplary work in the field of checking the claims and could be able to decimate the right information to the public.
First Draft’s collaborative journalism verification project, 'Crosscheck', during the recent French Elections, played a significant role in slaying the misinformation. 'CrossCheck' supported by GoogleNewsLab has tied up with 17 French newsrooms including Agence France-Presse(AFP), BuzzFeed News, France Médias Monde and others. Post French Elections First Draft has received requests from the across the globe and to name just a few of these countries are Singapore, Argentina and Zambia.
The Full Fact and First Draft have come together to work on fact checking during the upcoming UK elections. The Full Fact established in 2010 with just three staff has now grown big not only by numbers but the impact that it has been creating in the area of exposing the misinformation and claim checking. Full Fact had worked extensively in 2015 elections as well as during the Brexit referendum and had a database of 2044 already verified claims in public service sectors like NHS and areas like Immigration, Crime and Law.
Reuters Institute For the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford has published a Digital News Project report in 2016 titled ‘The Rise of Fact Checking Sites in Europe’ . According to the report, the new millennium witnessed growth and rapid global spread of a new democratic institution, the independent political fact-checkers.
The report says “at least 34 permanent sources of political fact-checking are active in 20 different European countries, from Ireland to Turkey”
According to Duke Reporters’ Lab Including the United States, 11 countries have more than one fact checker with a total of 177 including 115 are active. In 2015 the number was just 44. The report reveals the United States has the largest number of fact checkers totalling 43 followed by France with 6 and then the United Kingdom 6. Spain has 4, Ukraine 4, South Korea 3, Canada 3, Brazil 3, Mexico 2, Argentina 2, Colombia 2, China 1 and India 1.
Taking fact checking further ahead Full Fact has started an automated fact-checking system which works in real time and will not only be useful to journalists but to the general public too.
According to Full Fact’s State of Automated Fact Checking report, its system is now for internal use and will be available for external use in future. The automated system tracks what MPs speak in UK Parliament and reports in major media outlets. The system not only identified previously checked claims but also test the accuracy of the claims. Full Fact is now working on a roadmap for developing the international standards with a broader collaboration to make useful tools and as well as to avoid duplication of work. Full Fact in its report says automated fact-checking is all about “getting the right information to the right people at the right time”.
The role of fact checking is likely to grow further in protecting democratic principles with the use of technology apart from involving human fact checkers where newer areas like consumer rights and misinformation in goods and other public services can be added in along with claims made by politicians and media on various subjects.
References:
https://reporterslab.org/fact-checking/
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/The%20Rise%20of%20Fact-Checking%20Sites%20in%20Europe.pdf
https://fullfact.org/blog/2017/feb/what-automated-factchecking-and-how-will-it-work/
http://panosa.org/vacancy-announcement-for-female-fact-checker/