If recent history is any guide, the U.S. presidential contest next year will bring a surge in political fact-checking — and, inevitably, a spate of pieces asking whether it matters or calling it a waste of effort.
Critics will point to politicians like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, who gleefully ignore fact-checkers and repeat debunked claims without seeming to pay any price. They’ll cite abundant research showing that corrections are less effective in dislodging false beliefs tied to our partisan preferences, and that they may never reach the relevant audience in the first place. These critiques will only be sharpened by mounting fears about the influence of disinformation campaigns on Facebook and other social networks.
But here’s a more hopeful prediction: Amid all of the hand-wringing, 2020 will also see a smarter conversation taking shape about how facts and fact-checking matter in democratic politics.
Too often our expectations for fact-checking reflect what could be called the Scooby-Doo model of political accountability — for the moment at the end of every episode of that cartoon when the villain is unmasked (literally) and carted off to jail, usually muttering something about how he would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for “you meddling kids.” There’s no doubt or debate here: Once the facts come to light, the consequences follow automatically.
The same unrealistic assumptions come through in the neatly packaged histories we use affirm the democratic role of the Fourth Estate — for example, in the glossy version of the Watergate story, where dogged reporters expose wrongdoing, turn the nation against a corrupt president, and unleash a wave of legislative reforms. There’s some truth in this kind of myth-making, but it erases the crucial part played by other institutions (like Congress and the Justice Department), overlooks how slowly public opinion shifted, and most of all makes the outcome seem like a foregone conclusion.
Our idealized notion of how facts should work in politics is rooted at least partly in the “folk theory” of democracy you probably learned in civics class — the one with the highly attentive citizens who evaluate all the information they glean from the news, form reasoned opinions based on them, and render their judgments on Election Day. Under this ideal, the key problem in politics is always to provide the right information; when outcomes don’t match our expectations, the problem must be that voters are misinformed. (In fact, the best evidence suggests that so-called “fake news” has limited reach and limited effects, and did not play the decisive role often attributed to it in recent elections.)
This isn’t to say that efforts by fact-checkers and other journalists to nail down the facts don’t matter — on the contrary, they’re vital. But accurate information rarely settles political questions on its own. The facts unearthed by reporters and other watchdogs are a resource for public action, but they tend to make a real difference only when they are mobilized by political campaigns or social movements, or used to trigger institutional responses from regulators or the courts.
Fact-checkers know better than anyone that publishing is only the first step in an incremental process that, in the best cases, can help push political discourse onto firmer ground. They partner with major media outlets, and with platforms like Facebook, to reach the biggest audience they can. Many also work with media literacy campaigns to educate young people about online misinformation, or with academic researchers to test the best methods for correcting false beliefs. Some fact-checkers have tried to move beyond what they call the “publish and pray” model, for instance, by actively seeking corrections from politicians and news organizations, or by working with public agencies to promote better handling of official statistics.
It goes without saying that none of these efforts will “solve” the problem of political lying and misinformation. But by rejecting reductive debates about whether fact-checking “works” or not, we’ll take an important step toward understanding what kinds of measures actually can help to promote fact-based discourse — and affirm the value of fact-checking as an institution dedicated to that goal.
Lucas Graves is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin.
If recent history is any guide, the U.S. presidential contest next year will bring a surge in political fact-checking — and, inevitably, a spate of pieces asking whether it matters or calling it a waste of effort.
Critics will point to politicians like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, who gleefully ignore fact-checkers and repeat debunked claims without seeming to pay any price. They’ll cite abundant research showing that corrections are less effective in dislodging false beliefs tied to our partisan preferences, and that they may never reach the relevant audience in the first place. These critiques will only be sharpened by mounting fears about the influence of disinformation campaigns on Facebook and other social networks.
But here’s a more hopeful prediction: Amid all of the hand-wringing, 2020 will also see a smarter conversation taking shape about how facts and fact-checking matter in democratic politics.
Too often our expectations for fact-checking reflect what could be called the Scooby-Doo model of political accountability — for the moment at the end of every episode of that cartoon when the villain is unmasked (literally) and carted off to jail, usually muttering something about how he would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for “you meddling kids.” There’s no doubt or debate here: Once the facts come to light, the consequences follow automatically.
The same unrealistic assumptions come through in the neatly packaged histories we use affirm the democratic role of the Fourth Estate — for example, in the glossy version of the Watergate story, where dogged reporters expose wrongdoing, turn the nation against a corrupt president, and unleash a wave of legislative reforms. There’s some truth in this kind of myth-making, but it erases the crucial part played by other institutions (like Congress and the Justice Department), overlooks how slowly public opinion shifted, and most of all makes the outcome seem like a foregone conclusion.
Our idealized notion of how facts should work in politics is rooted at least partly in the “folk theory” of democracy you probably learned in civics class — the one with the highly attentive citizens who evaluate all the information they glean from the news, form reasoned opinions based on them, and render their judgments on Election Day. Under this ideal, the key problem in politics is always to provide the right information; when outcomes don’t match our expectations, the problem must be that voters are misinformed. (In fact, the best evidence suggests that so-called “fake news” has limited reach and limited effects, and did not play the decisive role often attributed to it in recent elections.)
This isn’t to say that efforts by fact-checkers and other journalists to nail down the facts don’t matter — on the contrary, they’re vital. But accurate information rarely settles political questions on its own. The facts unearthed by reporters and other watchdogs are a resource for public action, but they tend to make a real difference only when they are mobilized by political campaigns or social movements, or used to trigger institutional responses from regulators or the courts.
Fact-checkers know better than anyone that publishing is only the first step in an incremental process that, in the best cases, can help push political discourse onto firmer ground. They partner with major media outlets, and with platforms like Facebook, to reach the biggest audience they can. Many also work with media literacy campaigns to educate young people about online misinformation, or with academic researchers to test the best methods for correcting false beliefs. Some fact-checkers have tried to move beyond what they call the “publish and pray” model, for instance, by actively seeking corrections from politicians and news organizations, or by working with public agencies to promote better handling of official statistics.
It goes without saying that none of these efforts will “solve” the problem of political lying and misinformation. But by rejecting reductive debates about whether fact-checking “works” or not, we’ll take an important step toward understanding what kinds of measures actually can help to promote fact-based discourse — and affirm the value of fact-checking as an institution dedicated to that goal.
Lucas Graves is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin.
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Jeremy Olshan All journalism should be service journalism
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Richard Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
J. Siguru Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Ståle Grut OSINT journalism goes mainstream
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Tamar Charney From broadcast to bespoke
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
Kourtney Bitterly Transparency isn’t just a desire, it’s an expectation
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Logan Jaffe You don’t need fancy tools to listen
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
An Xiao Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Mario García Think small (screen)
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
Joshua P. Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Juleyka Lantigua A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline