During the past decade and a half, as politicians around the globe engaged in a relentless barrage of claims and counter-claims, the world’s fact-checking community reliably intercepted much of that misinformation. But now, according to a new Duke Reporters’ Lab count, the number of fact-checkers has reached a plateau — just as the world needs them more than ever.
This year, the Reporters’ Lab counted 50 state and local fact-checking projects in 25 states and Washington, D.C. Most are run by media outlets, and some are affiliated with national fact-checking organizations like PolitiFact and the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). Three of the projects are based at universities: Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism; The Daily Iowan, the student newspaper at the University of Iowa; and West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media.
Most of the new fact-checkers this year got their start in 2020, with nearly 40 percent of the total fact-checking outlets created that year. In contrast, the oldest project is Wisconsin’s WISC-TV, which began producing its Reality Check in 2004.
While some of the new fact-checkers have focused on a particular political issue or event, many have been relatively broad in their scope. That includes checking a wide range of false information, from misogynistic language and fake news about race to fake science and foreign policy. In a recent study, we found that on average, in all four countries tested, fact-checks caused significant reductions in belief in the false information, and that these effects lasted for more than two weeks after people saw the first fact-check.
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