The Rise of the Brazilian Fact-checking Movement: Between Economic Sustainability and Editorial Independence

ABSTRACT

This study addresses the expansion of Brazilian fact-checking enterprises, focusing on their funding sources and challenges to ensure editorial autonomy. The research is mainly grounded in semi-structured interviews with 16 fact-checkers from 13 active organizations, and includes complementary data collected from the initiatives’ websites. The findings show that the organizational milieu in which fact-checking firms flourish influences their revenue streams. Fact-checkers face different economic and editorial challenges depending on their organizational environment. Nevertheless, their chief business strategy to gain economic viability mainly translates into a solid presence on digital platforms. It involves reaching niche markets on social media and attracting users to their websites. Last, the limited staff of most fact-checking initiatives and their growing dependence on big tech money have led them to modularize their corrections to different platforms and publish debunking at the expense of political fact-checking. In short, this study contributes to the growing scholarship on fact-checking by evidencing that this professional reform movement is dealing with power dynamics familiar to the journalism they want to reform.

KEYWORDS:

• Fact-checking
• economic sustainability
• editorial independence
• digital platforms
• business strategies
• debunking

Introduction

In the last years, the rise of fact-checking organizations worldwide has been evident (Graves 2016; Graves and Lauer 2020; Singer 2020). The latest Duke Reporters’ Lab census shows that the fact-checking industry spans over 102 countries and counts 341 active firms (Stencel and Luther 2021). Although that global expansion has been slowing down, 36 new initiatives were launched in 2020 (Stencel and Luther 2021).

As several scholars argue (Amazeen 2018; Dobbs 2012; Graves 2016; Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016; Singer 2020), fact-checking represents a professional reform movement that began in American journalism in the early 2000s. It results from an “interpretative turn” in the normative tenets of the objectivity model, promoting an analytical, contextual, and critical approach (Dobbs 2012; Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016). As past research contends, that novel journalistic practice constitutes a rupture with the so-called “he said, she said” accounts that “refuse to take sides on factual disputes” (Graves 2016, 1), especially when those disputes involve political figures (Dobbs 2012; Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016).

It should be noted that the verification of information accuracy before its publication has been a consecrated principle in modern journalism since the early decades of the twentieth century (Bigot 2017; Nerone 2015). So, even before fact-checking became a genre of journalism production, the internal verification procedure of texts was standard in newsrooms.

In parallel with the emergence of the global fact-checking movement (Graves 2016; Graves and Lauer 2020), an expanding scholarship has centered on different aspects of that journalistic subfield. Previous studies have discussed the effectiveness of fact-checking in correcting false beliefs (Wintersieck 2017; Wintersieck, Fridkin, and Kenney 2018), the editorial guidelines, methods, and professional values of active organizations through comparative analysis (Amazeen 2018; Graves 2016; Mena 2018; Singer 2020), and the socio-structural incentives for fact-checking worldwide (Amazeen 2017; Graves and Anderson 2020; Graves and Lauer 2020; Lowrey 2015; Singer 2019).

There is a scarcity of academic literature considering fact-checking as a news business with economic and editorial challenges. With a few exceptions (Esteban-Navarro et al. 2021; Graves and Anderson 2020; Graves and Lauer 2020; Lowrey 2015; Singer 2019), this topic is practically absent whether in Anglo-Saxon journals or Ibero-American journals. It is widely known that the fact-checking enterprise has been developing in a diversified organizational environment, comprising independent start-ups, university- and NGO-based formats, and traditional outlets of mainstream media, with distinct market approaches (Graves 2016; Lowrey 2015; Singer 2019). Nevertheless, little is known regarding how fact-checkers advance their enterprises in these different organizational milieus and which challenges they face to ensure editorial independence, an issue also prominent for journalism studies more broadly (Carlson and Usher 2015; Wagemans, Witschge, and Deuze 2016; Wright, Scott, and Bunce 2019).

This article aims to contribute to that scholarship by analyzing the establishment of the Brazilian fact-checking venture in recent years. Specifically, it centers on active initiatives’ economic support and editorial independence in a highly competitive digital landscape currently ruled by digital platforms (Nieborg and Poell 2018; Wang 2020).

Literature Review

Fact-checking as a Journalistic Subfield

Previous studies have addressed several reasons outlining the emergence of the global fact-checking movement since the early 2010s. First, it has been discussed against the backdrop of the worldwide crisis in mainstream media markets (Munger 2019). That crisis has been described as arising from the relocation of advertising revenues to platform companies (Nieborg and Poell 2018; Nielsen and Ganter 2017) that led to massive layoffs in newsrooms and reduced staff to carry out fact-checking before the news came to the public (Amazeen 2018; Graves 2016).

Second, the appeal that fact-checking does with most respected epistemological and ethical standards of US journalism (Amazeen 2018; Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016), such as accuracy (Dobbs 2012) and transparency (Seibt and Fonseca 2019; Singer 2020), has been praised as a proper response to the downturn in press credibility in Western democracies (Dobbs 2012; Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016). That normative assumption has also been used to explain the rise of the global fact-checking industry.

Nevertheless, critical scholarship on fact-checking has suggested that the success of that journalistic subfield is associated with moral panics regarding disinformation since the unexpected results of the US presidential elections and Brexit referendum in 2016 (Albuquerque 2021; Marres 2018; Yarrow 2021). After that, a strong claim to get the facts back has abounded in the public sphere, and fact-checkers have been lauded as neutral truth arbiters benefiting well-informed democratic citizenship (Yarrow 2021).

However, previous research has pointed to the technical inconsistency of procedures used by fact-checkers to select a checkable claim and determine its truth value (Uscinski 2015; Uscinski and Butler 2013). It also has shown disagreements in the verdicts of organizations that verify the same statements (Lim 2018; Marietta, Barker, and Bowser 2015), the limited reach of corrections in the public sphere (Robertson, Mourão, and Thorson 2020; Vargo, Guo, and Amazeen 2018), and the selective sharing of corrections by partisans to advance their political agenda (Shin and Thorson 2017).

Moreover, scholars have argued that fact-checking relies upon a broader principle of demarcation that equates facts to objective statements of the “world out there” (Marres 2018), operationalizing a “hard fact/value distinction which, in the process, tends to validate certain forms of expertise as value-free” (Yarrow 2021, 6). It is not by chance that several mainstream media outlets have put in motion their fact-checking units in recent years amidst growing populist attitudes toward legacy newspapers (Lelo and Pachi Filho 2021).

Likewise, platform companies (e.g., Meta, Google) and philanthropic organizations (e.g., Open Society Foundations, Heinrich Böll Foundation) have been major sponsors of fact-checking initiatives worldwide. There has been a growing concern that fact-checkers are being spin doctored by those corporations to show off their virtue – dispelling accusations of monopoly or capital concentration. Consequently, it is crucial to understand how fact-checking firms have been funded and how they advance their organizations by weighing editorial autonomy.

The Brazilian Fact-checking Landscape

Currently, most studies about the modern fact-checking enterprise have concentrated on the US context, frequently addressing one of the three most influential organizations (viz., FactCheck.org, Politifact.com, and The Washington Post’s Fact-Checker) (Dobbs 2012; Graves 2016). Articles that analyze the characteristics of the projects launched in the “Global South” are scarce; however, they are fruitful since they address socio-political and economic particularities barely considered up to now (e.g., political pressure, linguistic barriers, and the paucity of financial resources) (Haque et al. 2018). Besides, given the historical media concentration and the absence of public service media in Latin America (Albuquerque 2017), discussions surrounding the advent of entrepreneurial news start-ups have gained particular importance recently, even outside the fact-checking industry (Harlow 2020; Harlow and Salaverría 2016; Tejedor et al. 2020).

As Duke Reporters’ Lab points out, there were 42 active fact-checking firms in South America in 2020 (Stencel and Luther 2021). Inspired by the American movement, the first Latin American country to receive a fact-checking enterprise was Argentina, with the launch of the Chequeado in 2010 (Riera and Zoomer 2020). The success of this organization encouraged other journalists to implement similar websites in several countries, such as Mexico, Colombia (Palau-Sampio 2018), and Brazil (Diniz 2018; Lelo and Pachi Filho 2021; Seibt and Fonseca 2019).

Nowadays, there is a flourishing landscape of Brazilian fact-checking firms. Even though this genre of the journalistic report was practically absent until 2012 (except for the traditional copyediting procedure in newsrooms), from 2014 onward, projects committed to assessing the accuracy of politicians’ claims and dispelling internet rumors boosted expressively (Diniz 2018; Lelo and Pachi Filho 2021; Seibt and Fonseca 2019). The socio-political context also influenced the expansion of the Brazilian fact-checking venture, particularly during the last general elections (2014 and 2018) (Lelo forthcoming).

In 2015, former journalists of legacy newspapers who resigned from their jobs launched the first Brazilian independent fact-checking websites (i.e., Aos Fatos, Lupa Agency). These organizations are considered independent because they are not owned by media conglomerates (Harlow 2020; Singer 2019). So, they are not subjected to the interests of any economic group or political power in advance.

From 2017 onward, several fact-checking units from media conglomerates were launched. As Albuquerque (2017) states, Brazilian media groups are owned by few families and are scarcely regulated, increasing their economic and political hegemony. So, legacy newspapers have incentives to “perceive themselves as political agents in their own right.” (Albuquerque 2017, 909). The rise of fact-checking units of mainstream media has been discussed as a discursive strategy to reinvigorate the press credibility against the backdrop of growing distrust in traditional newspapers (Lelo and Pachi Filho 2021).

In 2018, the presidential election background had strengthened the Brazilian fact-checking movement. It is noteworthy that the Brazilian Election Justice established partnerships with fact-checkers during the 2018 and 2020 elections to deter disinformation regarding the election process (Santos 2021).

Economic Sustainability and Editorial Independence

This article centers on the surge of Brazilian fact-checking enterprises, focusing on active organizations’ economic support and editorial independence. Until now, few studies have discussed the organizational structure of fact-checking firms (Amazeen 2018; Lowrey 2015; Singer 2019, 2020). Although sparse, this scholarship has pointed to a somewhat contradictory situation: on the one hand, there is a global development of this journalistic practice; on the other hand, there is a high mortality rate of new fact-checking initiatives. The last Duke Reporters’ Lab informs that, from 2014 to 2020, an average of 15 organizations close down a year (Stencel and Luther 2021). The average lifespan of inactive projects is two years and three months, and the chief reasons outlining this situation are limited funding and expiring grants.

This problem may worsen in Latin American countries due to diverse factors, such as the concentration of media ownership and political parallelism (Mellado et al. 2012). For this reason, it is critical to ask how fact-checking firms are establishing themselves in diverse socio-political contexts. Based on this background, this study inquires:

RQ1: How do Brazilian fact-checking organizations are funded?

RQ2: What strategies do fact-checkers advance to achieve economic sustainability?

Besides, the editorial independence of news websites funded by platform companies (Nechushtai 2017; Nielsen and Ganter 2017; Wang 2020) and philanthropic foundations (Wright, Scott, and Bunce 2019) has been a topic of particular relevance for journalism studies. Research has shown that online newspapers have depended on big tech money since services like Google Ads have controlled the ad industry generating revenue through user traffic (Braun and Eklund 2019; Wang 2020). In the fact-checking enterprise, the balance between editorial independence and economic sustainability is critical since the turnover of initiatives per year is considerably high.

In that context, scholars have been analyzing the growing support of the global fact-checking movement coming from platform companies and philanthropic donors (Graves and Anderson 2020; Graves and Lauer 2020; Nicey and Bigot 2020; Singer 2019). Particularly big techs have sponsored fact-checkers worldwide, establishing editorial partnerships with them. Initiatives such as Google News Lab and Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program have offered grants to support several organizations.

For these reasons, several scholars have been asking whether partnerships between fact-checking initiatives and major funders are compromising their editorial independence. So, it raises the question:

RQ3: Do fact-checkers see challenges to their editorial autonomy depending on their major sponsors?

Methods

This study mainly adopts a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with fact-checkers to assess their initiatives’ economic sustainability and editorial independence. Nevertheless, complementary data regarding the organizational environment, major sponsors, editorial staff, and editorial purpose of active firms was collected from fact-checking initiatives’ websites.

The number of operative fact-checking websites in 2020 was gathered by accessing different sources. It should be noted that by active fact-checking organizations, it was considered those websites updated at least one time in six months prior to the date when the data was collected (that is, 15 December 2020) (Lowrey 2015).

Until now, the most relevant database of Brazilian fact-checking initiatives is provided by the catalog maintained by Duke Reporter’s Lab. It informs that Brazil has nine active fact-checking enterprises: AFP Checamos, Aos Fatos, Boatos.org, Comprova Project, E-farsas, Estadão Verifica, Fato ou Fake, Lupa Agency, and UOL Confere. Nevertheless, complementary research was undertaken on the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) signatories list, members’ list of fact-checking coalitions (e.g., Comprova Project, CoronaVirusFacts Alliance, Rede Nacional de Combate à Desinformação), and fact-checking consortiums coordinated by the judiciary system during elections (e.g., Superior Electoral Court).

IFCN and CoronaVirusFacts Alliance have three Brazilian members: Aos Fatos, Estadão Verifica, Lupa Agency, overlapping findings from Duke’s list. Likewise, coalitions led by the judiciary system did not add new data to the sample. Nevertheless, Comprova Project includes three fact-checking firms in their coalition: AFP Checamos, Coletivo Bereia, and Prova Real. Rede Nacional de Combate à Desinformação has also three professional fact-checking organizations among its members: Coletivo Bereia, Eté Checagem, and Fakebook.ECO. Finally, the database was complemented by manually searching “Brazil” and “fact-checking” on Google (in Portuguese). Results added two other active firms: Fonte Exclusiva and Holofote.

The sample is centered on the 15 active fact-checking firms in 2020. Information about their funding models, strategies to achieve economic viability, and their challenges to ensure editorial independence were mainly collected by interviewing representatives of several initiatives.

Semi-structured Interviews

Potential interviewees were selected by searching the “about us” sections of fact-checking websites. At least one representative of each initiative was contacted through his/her professional email or by the institutional email accounts of the fact-checking firms. From August 2020 to February 2021, 16 journalists representing 13 out of 15 Brazilian fact-checking organizations were interviewed. The sample includes five reporters, five directors, and six editors. In terms of gender diversity, it comprises 11 women and five men.

Due to the restrictions of the Covid-19 outbreak, all interviews were conducted online in hybrid format, including text messages (six cases), audio records (three cases), and Zoom calls (seven cases). That hybrid interview format was selected because many interviewees did not have time for synchronous communication in their daily routines. The Zoom call average duration was one hour and was recorded with the interviewed consent. Interview scripts address organization infrastructure, business strategies, major funders, partnerships established, and editorial guidelines. Since this study is part of a broader research, the interview guide covers other topics besides economic support and editorial autonomy, such as motivations for fact-checking and innovative projects proposed by each firm. The right to anonymity was offered to all sources, but they waived it.

Data was standardized in textual documents by verbatim transcription. Next, it was grouped by thematic axis following the interview guide (Braun and Clarke 2006). The further stage involved summarizing the most relevant topics covered by each interview to identify critical issues addressed by the informants. Next, emerging patterns from that coding procedure were considered against the RQs. Finally, proper inferences were extracted from that analysis, identifying recurring trends connecting or differing active fact-checking firms concerning economic and editorial issues.

Complementary Data

The official websites of the 15 fact-checking initiatives were examined to gather quantitative data related to their infrastructure and business models. Analysis was centered on information available on the “about us” section of websites. First, it considers the organizational milieu of each initiative, ranging from fact-checking units of mainstream media to independent start-ups and even projects associated with NGOs and universities. Second, information on the funding sources was identified by tracking down programmatic advertising banners and sponsors banners on websites, crowdfunding projects, subscription programs, and even institutional publications announcing new partnerships with foundations and platform companies. Third, it registers the size of the editorial staff of each organization when that information is available. Also, it documents the editorial purpose of active initiatives, comprising debunking internet rumors and checking political claims. Finally, that dataset was entered into a specific document and used mainly to complement interview material.

Results

Funding Sources of Brazilian Fact-checking Organizations

The Brazilian fact-checking industry revolves under two main axes: on the one hand, units of legacy newspapers mainly funded by the media conglomerates to which they belong; on the other one, independent start-ups, NGO and academic initiatives supported by more diverse revenue sources.

Currently, five out of 15 active firms are associated with media conglomerates. The first of these fact-checking units is UOL Confere, a website hosted in the UOL news portal, which pertains to the media group UOL PagSeguro, the third more profitable platform company in Brazil (Comscore 2021). The second one is Prova Real, hosted in the news portal of NSC Total as the fact-checking unit of the NSC Comunicação, a regional media conglomerate (based in Santa Catarina, a state in the South Region of Brazil) that owns television and radio stations, newspapers, and news sites. The third fact-checking unit of mainstream media is Estadão Verifica, a blog hosted in the Estadão news portal, owned by the Estado Group. Fato ou Fake is the fourth fact-checking venture of media conglomerates in Brazil and was also launched by the Globo Group, the largest media conglomerate in the country. It assembles journalists from several newsrooms of the Group, including newspapers, magazines, news portals, television, and radio stations. Holofote is the last active fact-checking unit of mainstream media in Brazil. It was put in motion by the journalist Guilherme Goulart and hosted on the news portal of the Correio Braziliense, an outlet belonging to the Diários Associados Group and based in Brasília, the Brazilian capital. Diários Associados is the oldest media conglomerate in Brazil, founded in the 1920s by the media mogul Assis Chateaubriand (Cabral 2016).

Since media conglomerates own fact-checking units of traditional media, they finance them. Due to Brazil’s historical media ownership concentration (Albuquerque 2017), these companies centralize the most significant share of advertising revenues. In 2020, advertizers expended around $10.29 billion in the Brazilian market, and the mainstream media was the primary beneficiary (Deloitte 2021).

Nevertheless, the six representatives of these fact-checking units interviewed emphasize that they do not have a commercial department and independence to develop their business plans. They work on the editorial staff and are employees of the media group. If the fact-checking unit is closed, they would be fired or assigned to other publications of the same group.

In contrast, independent fact-checkers rely on more diversified funding sources to guarantee economic sustainability. They comprise seven initiatives: Aos Fatos, Boatos.org, Coletivo Bereia, E-farsas, Eté Checagem, Fonte Exclusiva, and Lupa Agency. These enterprises must develop their business strategies to prospect for other revenue streams. Their firms’ viability also depends on their expertise to design a solid funding model, as prior research shows (Graves 2016; Lowrey 2015; Singer 2019).

Six out of seven independent fact-checkers are backed by editorial partnerships with traditional media, platform companies, and public foundations. For instance, Lupa Agency was supported by Editora Alvinegra, a publisher owned by João Moreira Salles, a filmmaker and one of the heirs of the Itaú bank, the most significant private bank in Brazil. As Natália Leal (Lupa Agency’s content director) stresses,

the capital for the implementation of Lupa came from Editora Alvinegra through three-year sponsorship. The agreement fixed that the agency’s TI structure would be connected with the Piauí magazine, viz., the fact-checking initiative would be hosted as a blog of that magazine, even though they did not have any corporate or editorial relationship.

Yet some of these partnerships with news outlets involve selling corrections to the partner’s website. According to Leal, the current leading financial source of Lupa Agency comes from fixed and short-term contracts with several mainstream media organizations. These contracts correspond to 70% of Lupa’s Agency annual revenue. That is, partner companies pay for most of the firm’s income. However, fact-checkers also establish fixed partnerships with platform companies that do not involve the content sale but their expertise to detect misleading stories flagged on social media.

Four out of seven fact-checking start-ups develop consultancy programs and training workshops for institutions interested in disinformation campaigns and media literacy. In addition, three out of seven independent fact-checkers count on subscriptions and readers’ donations to generate income, following a donor-organization relationship discussed by scholarly literature on entrepreneurial news sites in Latin America (Harlow 2020; Tejedor et al. 2020). Last, only three independent fact-checking websites include advertising in their funding models (i.e., Boatos.org, E-farsas and Fonte Exclusiva).

Besides, the three remaining fact-checking organizations associated with NGOs, academic institutions, and news agencies (i.e., AFP Checamos, Comprova Project, Fakebook.ECO) mix the funding models of fact-checking units of mainstream media and independent start-ups. For instance, Fakebook.ECO, an initiative focused on disinformation related to environmental issues, is supported by the Observatório do Clima, a civil society foundation centered on climate change issues with resources of several foundations, such as Rainforest Foundation Norway, Oak Foundation, and Climate and Land Use Alliance. Likewise, AFP Checamos, the Brazilian section of AFP Fact Check (a branch of the AFP News Agency), is partially sponsored by a state subvention of the French government and partially supported by editorial partnerships with news media outlets, foundations, and platform companies.

Economic Support by Platform Companies

Platform companies are a vital funding source for Brazilian fact-checking organizations. Overall, seven out of 15 websites (whether independent start-ups or units of legacy news media outlets) rely on programmatic advertising, and eight out of 15 counts on editorial partnerships with big techs (i.e., Google and Meta).

Fact-checkers who profit from programmatic advertising usually make business accounts on Google AdSense to include banners on their websites. Programmatic advertising refers to an “automated auction that happens as you load a website, in which advertizers bid to place an ad on the page you are viewing.” (Braun and Eklund 2019, 2).

All fact-checking units of mainstream media include two or three banners of programmatic advertising on each page following the pattern of the news portal to which they belong. Yet just two independent start-ups rely on programmatic advertising in their business models. According to Edgard Matsuki (Boatos.org’ editor-in-chief): “Google’s ad service allows my organization to dedicate to journalistic work without negotiating with advertising agencies or hiring a marketing staff.”

Besides, platform companies establish editorial partnerships with fact-checking organizations. These partnerships follow three models. First, big techs hire fact-checkers as service providers. Currently, the four Brazilian fact-checking initiatives that are IFCN signatories (i.e., AFP Checamos, Aos Fatos, Estadão Verifica, and Lupa Agency) are Meta partners in its Third-Party Fact-Checking program. They have also received Google’s fact-checking stamp ratified by the ClaimReview standard. Google and Meta fact-checking partnerships aim to limit the reach of stories signaled as false by journalists, increasing the visibility of fact-checking content in search engines and social media (Graves and Anderson 2020; Nicey and Bigot 2020).

As mentioned above, Lupa Agency signs fixed and short-term contracts with other organizations, and its principal business partner is Meta. Likewise, Ana Freitas (Aos Fatos’ executive director) argues that assistance from big techs is essential to her initiative’s economic sustainability, along with subscriptions and consulting services.

The second type of financial support platform companies offer to fact-checking enterprises is grants to advance innovative journalistic products. Up to now, only Lupa Agency and Aos Fatos have received grants to advance automated tools for monitoring disinformation, visualizing data, and improving user interaction. Ana Freitas and Natália Leal inform that their organizations promote the constant idealization and design of new projects, eventually submitted to platform companies open grants. Leal adds that the economic health of independent journalists relies upon the financial support of big techs: “Nowadays, our fixed and short-term contracts do not fund us. So, the rise in brand awareness often compensates for the initial investment involved in designing new projects.”

The third type of sponsorship of the Brazilian fact-checking venture by platform companies is by offering grants for fact-checking alliances. The most famous coalition is the Comprova Project (a Brazilian version of the French Cross Check), launched in 2018 and coordinated by the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). First Draft News proposed Comprova Project, a nonprofit coalition sponsored by Google News Lab, aggregating grantmaking networks (e.g., Open Society) and corporate entities (e.g., Meta, Twitter). In 2020, Comprova Project assembled 28 media outlets, including five fact-checking organizations (i.e., AFP Checamos, Coletivo Bereia, Estadão Verifica, Prova Real, and UOL Confere). As José Lima (Comprova’s Project assistant editor) informs,

Google News Initiative and Meta Journalism Project provide financial support to coalition members as a counterpart to their involvement in Comprova Project activities. In turn, every newsroom funded by the coalition needs to designate at least one journalist to work exclusively for it, and each fake news corrected needs to be ratified by three other media outlets joining the coalition.

Overall, 12 out of 15 Brazilian fact-checkers, regardless of being independent start-ups or mainstream media, receive big tech money by trading programmatic advertising banners on their websites, getting grants, or establishing partnerships with Silicon Valley companies.

For fact-checking units of legacy newspapers, the economic dependency on platforms is more indirect since they belong to media conglomerates with several revenue streams, including private and public state advertising (Matos 2011). Conversely, independent fact-checkers and university- and NGO- based formats are more reliant on platform companies financing since it can ensure the economic viability of their organizations. Ana Freitas (of Aos Fatos) also emphasizes that partnerships with Meta and Google “generate, in fact, more visibility and attract users’ traffic to our website.” So, they complement other income sources of independent start-ups.

Business Strategies of Fact-checking Firms

Considering challenges that fact-checkers face to gain economic viability, particularly independent start-ups, all interviewees acknowledge that it is crucial to formulate a consistent business model to ensure their permanence in the digital environment. However, they advance these strategies in conformity with their organizational milieu.

As shown, fact-checkers of legacy newspapers do not have their market staff and often do not even know how their initiatives are inserted into the media group’s broader business strategy. As Talita Rosa (former journalist of Prova Real) states, that disconnection between editorial and market departments sometimes limits the fact-checking development in mainstream media. Referring to the Prova Real coverage of the Brazilian 2018 general election, she argues:

the institutional profit was enormous. The credibility, public repercussions, and the respect that the company gained might also be exploited from a market point of view. Yet the company lost that opportunity. They have a traditional view of decision-making that prevents the advancement of innovative journalistic practices.

Nevertheless, fact-checkers of legacy news outlets understand that their initiatives’ success depends on their competence to attract readers and extend their digital reach, following a trend also highlighted by previous studies on digital journalism (Hanusch and Tandoc 2017; Wang 2020). Although these firms are hosted in news portals with an expressive audience, they need to captivate loyal readers to be considered successful by the management staff. So, they use several tools to measure users’ traffic on their webpages and propose channels to receive comments and checkable content suggestions, such as forms, organizational email accounts, message apps, and chatbots. The primary purpose is to establish a relationship with the audience. Accordingly, Guilherme Goulart (Holofote’s editor-in-chief) demonstrates how this editorial strategy is conducted:

In email and WhatsApp accounts, I always try to respond, precisely to create this relationship with the audience […] because the more you personalize the contact, the better is to establish a relationship. So I always try to talk with the reader.

Even though fact-checkers of legacy media acknowledge the relevance of their strong presence on digital platforms as a profitable business strategy, they rarely have a social media staff or a team in charge of their accounts on social media networks, as is the case of Fato ou Fake, Prova Real, and UOL Confere. For example, Alessandra Monnerat (editor of Estadão Verifica) informs that their initiative operates “with a reduced staff because it is a beat at the Estadão newspaper and does not have an expert dedicated to social media.” As a result, their team cannot advance a solid presence on digital platforms to get more page views to Estadão Verifica.

Fact-checkers of traditional media outlets also argue that they get overloaded when they simultaneously manage multiple accounts on digital platforms. Guilherme Goulart (of Holofote) illustrates this point:

Considering that I have to do all this work, from verification to publication on the website and social media, it limits me a lot. So, I have to do everything by myself. I go to the newsroom at 4 pm, but I do not know when I go out.

Independent fact-checkers also weigh the relevance of readers’ loyalty to their economic viability since they may subscribe or donate to their firms. Nevertheless, they have been mainly focused on extending their audience to niche markets by managing accounts on multiple digital platforms. Most fact-checking start-ups have adjusted their corrections for social media networks, message apps, and sharing services. Aos Fatos and Lupa Agency also have hired social media experts to supervise their organizational profiles. As many interviewees emphasize, a successful commercial strategy on digital platforms can boost the fact-checking brand within new audiences who can subscribe to or donate to the organization. So, their very editorial policy is based on an active presence on digital platforms.

Natália Leal (of Lupa Agency) stresses that her firm’s principal business plan is to publish content on social media networks that competitors have not addressed, placing Lupa Agency as the single fact-checking venture on some digital platforms and attracting new readers to their website. For instance, Lupa Agency was the first Brazilian fact-checking agency to create a TikTok profile in July 2020 to reach younger audiences. Moreover, it hired a social media expert to manage an account on that app. Besides, Lupa Agency has five social media managers on its team, including a senior analyst, a designer, a media strategist, a video editor, and an intern. They adapt Lupa Agency’s corrections to digital platform affordances and promote brand awareness with diverse publics. In the same way, Luiza Bodenmüller (Aos Fatos’ strategy manager) underlines that “social media networks are important distribution channels of our content capable of extending our online presence.”

It is noteworthy that, since independent fact-checking firms have the autonomy to propose their business plans, they bet on multiple strategies besides extending their reach on digital platforms to achieve economic sustainability. As previously discussed, one of these strategies involves the submission of proposals to grant programs. According to Ana Freitas,

the Aos Fatos team is encouraged to devise and develop projects to be submitted to open grants of platform companies and national and foreign institutions. Proposals are debated by journalists, developers, data scientists, linguists, and other professionals who may contribute to their operationalization.

Likewise, Viviane Tavares (of Eté Checagem) says that her team “takes turns filling out these calls for grants and follows up the proposals we have for new projects.” Tavares also underscores that the availability of these grants is crucial to ensure the continuity of Eté Checagem’s work.

Some independent fact-checkers also invest in aligning their editorial policies to the IFCN code of principles to be a further signatory of that global network. Consequently, they may increase their chances of getting partnerships with large corporations, such as the Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program, which currently has over 80 members worldwide and is established only with IFCN’s verified signatories. Magali Cunha (Coletivo Bereia editor) states that their team “is working on getting the IFCN signatory stamp, which would allow the initiative to establish more editorial partnerships.”

Last, fact-checking start-ups ground their business strategies in selling workshops and media literacy courses to other institutions. One of the most successful cases in this respect is LupaEducação, launched in 2017 by Lupa Agency to teach citizens a set of fact-checking tools. Incomes of this program correspond to 30% of the initiative’s profits, according to Natália Leal (of Lupa Agency). However, other independent fact-checkers also perform opinion and market polls, as is the case of Fonte Exclusiva. Roberto Barbosa (Fonte Exclusiva director) says that these polls “are one of the main funders of our work because they involve high payment. So, we can sustain our activities by conducting opinion polls. Therefore, they are a promising market for us.”

Challenges to Editorial Independence

When fact-checkers are asked if they see challenges to their editorial independence because of their major sponsors, they are unanimous in denying any influence of corporate entities in their work – whether media conglomerates, platform companies or foundations. Interviewees stress their autonomy to decide which claims they cover and verdicts reached by their team. The sole external influence mentioned by IFCN signatories (partners of Meta on the Third-Party Fact-Checking program) is in the average corrections published monthly, as Ana Freitas (of Aos Fatos) states:

The impact of partnerships with Meta and Google in Aos Fatos’ activities is only in the workflow but never in editorial decisions, which must be committed to our code of principles. That is, none of our funders has any effect on the corrections we published.

Fact-checkers also notice that partnerships established with Silicon Valley corporations give them access to additional tools and engines to monitor online disinformation, increasing their brand awareness. Alessandra Monnerat (Estadão Verifica’ assistant editor) illustrates this point:

Especially the partnership with Meta has an essential role in extending our visibility. When we flag some Facebook content as false or misleading, people will be notified about that, and the post circulation will decrease … So, I think we see more directly the impact of our work on Facebook and Instagram users.

However, platform companies influence the correction policies of fact-checking ventures, as previous studies have shown (Graves and Lauer 2020; Nicey and Bigot 2020). Fact-checkers funded by big techs worldwide have been privileging corrections of social media content at the expense of checking political statements. This “debunking turn” in modern fact-checking mainly results from the policies of programs like Third-Party Fact-Checking, which inhibits the verification of opinion and political discourse based on the American conception of freedom of speech – that protects any claim as long as it is considered an opinion expression. That editorial guideline is mentioned by Cecilia Sorgine (of AFP Checamos) when she discusses the general policies of the partnership with Meta: “The AFP complies with Meta’s agreement regarding content published on the platform to not classifying political claims, as the platform specifies. However, our organization publishes what it deems necessary, independently of any partnership.”

Nevertheless, fact-checking firms that are partners with platform companies are also limited to producing political fact-checking due to organizational constraints. Interviewees inform that the amount of work demanded by Meta or Google in small newsrooms prevents them from covering a broader scope of claims. As Alessandra Monnerat (of Estadão Verifica) states, considering her team comprises four journalists, “monitoring social media takes up a lot of our time, and we end up not being able to dedicate more time to produce other types of corrections.”

According to Natália Leal (of Lupa Agency), the fixed contracts with platform companies influence the editorial guideline of fact-checking organizations:

Since we established these fixed contracts with platform companies, maybe if you look at what we have been publishing monthly, you could conclude that we have been publishing less political fact-checking to privilege corrections from social media content […] Modern fact-checking starts as an accountability tool for political speech. So, we are no longer this tool for political compliance with citizens and have become a content verifier on social media to prevent people from being deceived. Consequently, there is a change in the fact-checking role since it has established these partnerships with digital platforms.

In Leal’s viewpoint, the inherent risk of partnerships between fact-checkers and big techs is the capture of the fight against disinformation. As a result, corporations blamed for allowing the circulation of fake news on social media could lead fact-checkers to assume a reactive attitude towards disinformation, redirecting their activities to the very agenda of junk news.

Nevertheless, debunking sounds very appealing even for fact-checkers who are not partners of Silicon Valley corporations but include programmatic advertising in their funding model. Corrections based on user-generated content are often cheaper and faster than the inspection of the subtleties of political speech, which are more open to contentions and alternative interpretations, as scholars have argued (Marietta, Barker, and Bowser 2015; Uscinski 2015; Uscinski and Butler 2013; Yarrow 2021). For this reason, debunking is easier to label on a black–white scale, reducing the time spent in the newsroom to reach a verdict regarding the veracity of some suspicious content.

As many interviewees emphasize, it is essential to highlight that Brazilian fact-checkers operate with reduced teams, around five journalists per organization, and usually call freelancers to ensure a continuous production pace. For instance, Lucas Teixeira (UOL Confere reporter) delves into this issue: “most newsrooms were forced to reduce their staff due to the market crisis in mainstream media, so one solution that UOL has adopted was to call freelancers to ensure the production pace.”

In this context of human resources scarcity, the commercial logic of producing content that appeals to audiences and generates a revenue stream through clickbait strategies is a complicated reality to get around. Guilherme Goulart (of Holofote) underlines this issue: “If I tweet about classic fake news such as ‘fennel tea prevents coronavirus,’ it spins a lot on Twitter; but if I check a political claim, it gives me just two, three retweets. It is much less shareable.”

Last, mainstream media journalists often work to other beats over the fact-checking unit, which prevents them from spending time on corrections requiring further investigation. As Mayara Vieira (of Prova Real) shows: “our work at the Prova Real usually takes much time. So, either people arrive at the newsrooms before their formal entry or stay late.” As a result, the fact-checking unit adapts its editorial guideline to focus on dispelling viral internet rumors because they are usually easier to debunk.

Discussion

This study’s principal contributions are threefold. First, it shows that the organizational environment of Brazilian fact-checkers influences their economic support and editorial independence. The fact-checking units of news portals are, in principle, more stable as a business since they belong to media conglomerates and do not have to look for other revenue streams to get funding viability. However, they barely understand the initiative insertion in the broader media group since they do not get in touch with marketing staff and sometimes neither has access to their ventures’ accounts on digital platforms. As a result, their editorial challenges revolve around the news outlet they belong to. Journalists of these organizations work with limited staff and develop their corrections when not covering other news beats. So, they are part-time fact-checkers who have put in motion their initiatives severely constrained from the outset.

It should be emphasized that, even though fact-checkers of news portals are employees of media conglomerates that have a problematic relationship with political and economic elites (Albuquerque 2017), none of them has underscored any ideological leaning affecting their professional practices. According to them, the only constraints compromising the sustainability of their firms are the organizational ones, mainly the management’s willingness to invest in innovative journalistic products. It could be argued that the fact-checkers disregard for external influences possibly affecting the viability and independence of their enterprises is an expression of ideology pervading media industries (Corner 2015). Yet interviews data does not allow this study to pierce that point.

The independent fact-checking start-ups have to bet on a hybrid funding model to ensure economic viability, such as their counterparts worldwide. They must devise a business strategy lined up with their editorial guidelines to pursue durable revenue streams. It often involves suiting their principles and methods to the global fact-checking standards, developing products that corporate entities may fund, and reaching niche markets on the web to extend their subscribers and donators list. Fact-checkers inability to manage that complex state of affairs often represents their venture shut down.

It is worth mentioning that some fact-checkers of independent start-ups had an established career in legacy media, and their previous insertion in the journalistic field may have helped them to prospect a more extensive range of business partners. For instance, Tai Nalon and Cristina Tardáguila, the founders of Lupa’s Agency and Aos Fatos, respectively, are experienced reporters who have a relevant mainstream media trajectory. It is not by chance that Tardáguila had access to Moreira Salles family to get an initial investment to put Lupa’s Agency in motion. So, as recent studies have shown, the alternative media has connections with the mainstream one (Harlow 2021), composing a broader professional culture (Harlow 2019).

Until now, scholarly literature centered on the global fact-checking movement acknowledges that these firms have been developing in diverse organizational milieus worldwide (Graves 2016; Graves and Lauer 2020; Singer 2019, 2020). However, they usually disregard how that infrastructural diversity imposes different economic and editorial challenges to new initiatives.

Besides, fact-checking has been described as a professional reform movement based on a truth-seeking approach that improves journalism (Amazeen 2017; Dobbs 2012; Graves 2016; Graves and Lauer 2020; Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016; Mena 2018; Singer 2020). That normative framework overshadows the attachments of the fact-checking industry with broader media markets and even their particularities in contexts distinct from the US-European landscape. The constraints that fact-checking firms suffer to attend to their principles and goals reveal the power dynamics between publishers and sponsors that journalism studies have examined (Nielsen and Ganter 2017; Wagemans, Witschge, and Deuze 2016; Wang 2020; Wright, Scott, and Bunce 2019).

Second, this research highlights the critical role fact-checkers put on digital visibility as a chief strategy for economic sustainability. Almost all interviewees assert that extending their online presence and reaching a wider audience is one of the principal axes of their business plan. Nevertheless, because of the growing importance of digital platforms on the Internet, this strategy has translated into an intense penetration into social media networks, message apps, and sharing services.

Fact-checkers need to adapt their corrections to each platform they engage with, and some have also hired a social media management team to modularize their posts to social media affordances. However, since many Brazilian fact-checking firms work with reduced staff, they need to overcharge their team, making them responsible for all stages of the editorial process (namely, producing, editing, and distributing). In addition, the content modularization to digital platforms raises concerns about the commodification of fact-checking messages. These issues have been addressed by journalism studies (Hanusch and Tandoc 2017; Nechushtai 2017; Nieborg and Poell 2018; Wang 2020) and must be considered by the fact-checking scholarship as well.

Finally, this article shows the growing importance of economic incentives offered by Silicon Valley companies to the fact-checking movement through a “Global South” perspective. The extant academic literature has scarcely addressed that context so far (Graves and Anderson 2020; Graves and Lauer 2020; Nicey and Bigot 2020). In Brazil, these corporations provide different sources of financial support for fact-checkers.

On the one hand, by including programmatic advertising banners on their websites, fact-checking ventures can profit from user traffic without hiring an advertising team. On the other one, some initiatives have established contracts with platform companies to verify false content flagged on social media. As a result, fact-checkers have been increasingly focused on debunking internet rumors at the expense of correcting political claims. The findings show that seven Brazilian organizations include political statements in their editorial guidelines, whereas the other eight focus on debunking.

It can be assumed that platform companies are outsourcing their moderation activities by establishing partnerships with professional fact-checking organizations worldwide (Anderson and Graves 2020; Nicey and Bigot 2020). Misleading messages have their reach diminished and are linked to the verification texts written by professional fact-checkers. Consequently, with these partnerships, platform companies can argue that they are making all the feasible efforts to fight against fake news – sidestepping their business model’s discussion by calling the journalistic authority.

Nevertheless, the “debunking turn” in the Brazilian fact-checking movement can also be related to the reduced staff of several organizations. As interviewees contend, debunking is easier and faster because it is usually labeled on a black–white scale and does not involve political discourse subtleties. Moreover, it can increase users’ traffic to fact-checking websites because it is often based on viral Internet content.

Final Remarks

The rise of the fact-checking industry worldwide has been discussed mainly by an institutional approach centered on the field-configuring instances of that journalistic subgenre (Amazeen 2017, 2018; Graves 2016; Graves and Lauer 2020; Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016; Mena 2018; Singer 2019, 2020). Notwithstanding the significance of that framework to examine fact-checking as a professional reform movement with its principles, methods, and practices, there is an urgency to complement that scholarship with an organizational account (Harlow 2020; Tejedor et al. 2020; Wagemans, Witschge, and Deuze 2016) that considers fact-checking as an enterprise with economic and editorial demands.

This study has focused on the emergence of fact-checking firms through a “Global South” perspective. Considering the historical media ownership concentration (Albuquerque 2017), the political parallelism (Mellado et al. 2012), the scarcity of public service media, and the flourishing online-native journalism that abounds in Latin America in recent years (Harlow 2020; Harlow and Salaverría 2016; Tejedor et al. 2020), the fact-checking venture faces particular challenges to get long-term economic sustainability in the region.

The research has shown that despite fact-checking appeals to the most appreciated standards of the American journalistic model (Amazeen 2018; Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016) that historically influenced Brazilian journalism transformations (Albuquerque 2008); fact-checkers have been dealing with power dynamics similar to the institution they want to reform (Wang 2020). Since their revenue streams are associated with their organizational milieu, fact-checking initiatives need to adapt their business plan (if there is any) and editorial guidelines to get long-term viability. Nevertheless, these institutional adjustments put their normative discourse under pressure within digital media markets.

This study’s findings need to be discussed against some limitations. First, the research is mainly based on semi-structured interviews, which is helpful to apprehend informants’ viewpoints regarding the organizations they work for, as prior research has shown (Amazeen 2018; Graves 2016; Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016; Singer 2019, 2020). Yet when the emphasis shifts to the fact-checking firm itself, it is fundamental to complement that approach with other methods, such as a longitudinal account to economic and editorial factors that explain the economic viability of some initiative throughout the years.

Second, in order to critically address the consistency of fact-checking initiatives’ procedures and their commitment to the “truth-seeking” purpose, it is crucial to examine a sample of corrections published by these firms, as previous research has done (Lim 2018; Marietta, Barker, and Bowser 2015). Nevertheless, this piece has shown that the normative discourse surrounding fact-checking must be taken cautiously. At least in Brazil, active enterprises have been defining their editorial guidelines from their major sponsors’ preferences.

To conclude, comparative studies may underscore if the “debunking turn” is a trend towards a market-based model of fact-checking production or merely results from the growing concerns regarding disinformation amidst deliberative processes in Western democracies.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr Lorena Caminhas and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and feedback.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation [grant number: 2019/01330-0].