Epistemology of Fact Checking: An Examination of Practices and Beliefs of Fact Checkers Around the World

Abstract

Epistemologies of journalism differ across genres, and fact-checking, as an independent operation or feature within existing news media organizations, can be considered a genre of journalism with its own epistemology. This paper explores the epistemology of fact-checking as expressed by fact-checkers from 40 fact-checking organizations serving more than 50 countries on six continents. Fact-checkers operate in various political, social, economic, and informational contexts, and yet reveal isomorphic norms, practices, and structures, particularly in the form of knowledge, production of knowledge, and defense of their knowledge. What emerged in interviews with fact-checkers is a shared belief in the ability to determine the objective truth of claims, which is validated by evidence and a transparent process of reproducibility or modeling the fact-checking process. This process is also seen as a way to convince the reader of the accuracy and trustworthiness of fact-checks. Fact-checkers define their role and work as a public service, and frequently offer media literacy and fact-checking training to the public and journalists to instill a culture of factuality. Overall, the cross-national findings suggest that as fact-checking is becoming increasingly taken-for-granted or institutionalized, fact-checkers share a common epistemology, promoting confidence in factually verifiable truth.

Keywords:

• Fact-checking
• epistemology
• professional role
• form of news
• journalistic norms
• institutionalization
• professional experts

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1 Although conducting the interviews during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed that all participants had to debunk a lot of health misinformation, interviewees stated this didn’t change their fact-checking routines.

2 Facebook did not allow fact-checks of political statements on its platform at the time of the interviews.

3 Graves, Bélair-Gagnon, and Larsen (2023, p. 15) argue that this change in fact-checking work reflects a shift from the “public reason” mode of journalism to a “public health” mode that “attends explicitly to audience behaviors as a democratic concern.”

4 The interviews show that fact-checking is a collaborative effort with fluid organizational roles. Although our sample includes participants who describe themselves as programmers or data analysts, all participants said they contribute to fact-checks.

5 Most organizations in our study are stand-alone fact-checkers but some are news outlets with fact-checking units, except Liepa and Observador, which, while they have designated fact-checkers, have integrated fact-checking into the newsroom, potentially involving everyone.

6 Reporters without Borders (2023).

7 EIU Democracy Index (2022).