The Duke Reporters’ Lab spent this year’s eighth Global Fact conference helping the world’s fact-checkers learn more about tagging systems that can extend the reach of their work; encouraging a sense of community among organizations around the globe; and discussing new research that offers potent insights into how fact-checkers do their jobs.
This year’s Global Fact took place virtually for the second time, following years of meeting in person all around the world, in cities such as London, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Rome, and Cape Town. More than 1,000 fact-checkers, academic researchers, industry experts, and representatives from technology companies attended the virtual conference.
Over three days, the Reporters’ Lab team participated in five conference sessions and hosted a daily virtual networking table.
- Reporters’ Lab director and IFCN co-founder Bill Adair delivered opening remarks for the conference, focused on how fact-checkers around the world have closely collaborated in recent years.
- Mark Stencel, co-director of the Reporters’ Lab, moderated the featured talk with Tom Rosenstiel, the Eleanor Merrill Visiting Professor on the Future of Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland and coauthor of The Elements of Journalism. Rosenstiel previously served as executive director of the American Press Institute. He discussed research into how the public responds to the core values of journalism and how fact-checkers might be able to build more trust with their audience.
- Thomas Van Damme presented findings from his master’s thesis, “Global Trends in Fact-Checking: A Data-Driven Analysis of ClaimReview,” during a panel discussion moderated by Lucas Graves and featuring Joel Luther of the Reporters’ Lab and Karen Rebelo, a fact-checker from BOOM in India. Van Damme’s analysis reveals fascinating trends from five years of ClaimReview data and demonstrates ClaimReview’s usefulness for academic research.
- Luther also prepared two pre-recorded webinars that were available throughout the conference:
- Introduction to ClaimReview: the Hidden Infrastructure of Fact-Checks — This session was designed for newcomers to ClaimReview but includes some helpful tips and information for everyone using ClaimReview for their fact-checks.
- MediaReview: A Sibling to ClaimReview to Tag Manipulated Media — This video offers an overview of how to tag images and videos, as well as some findings from the MediaReview testing we’ve done so far.
In addition, the Reporters’ Lab is excited to reconnect with fact-checkers again at 8 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, November 10, for a feedback session on MediaReview. We’re pleased to report that fact-checkers have now used MediaReview to tag their fact-checks of images and videos 841 times, and we’re eager to hear any additional feedback and continue the open development process we began in 2019 in close collaboration with the IFCN.