After years of rocket-like growth, the number of fact-checkers appears to have stabilized, according to the latest count from Duke Reporters’ Lab. But that doesn’t mean the work is done. The long-term health of fact-checking depends on the continued willingness of journalists to invest their time and resources in it.
At the state and local level, there is often a gap in fact-checking coverage, leaving voters in what are known as “fact deserts” with few, if any, ways to keep up with false political claims made by public officials and on social media.
It is a problem that could be solved with help from existing technologies. For example, the tagging system ClaimReview and MediaReview, developed by two independent groups — the International Fact-Checking Network and the Global Voices Journalism Project — allows journalists to share structured data about their fact-checks, including the source of the claim, the person making it, the date and a verdict on its accuracy.
In addition to these tools, journalists can use AI to identify patterns in the data and help with other aspects of fact-checking, such as flagging repeated talking points. But none of these tools will work unless journalists are willing to collaborate, a willingness that is fading in an era where the world needs fact-checkers more than ever.
A few new sites have opened this year, but others are closing or slowing down. The average fact-checking site has an average lifespan of less than three years.