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[PHOTOS] The Reporters’ Lab takes on Global Fact 4 in Madrid

The Reporters’ Lab team recently spent five days in Spain, exploring the future of fact-checking — but we left plenty of time for churros, chocolate and an unusual fish concoction called Gulas.

Six team members from the Lab — co-directors Bill Adair and Mark Stencel, project manager Rebecca Iannucci, student researcher Riley Griffin, Share the Facts project manager Erica Ryan and developer Chris Guess — traveled to Madrid July 4-9 for Global Fact 4, the annual gathering of the world’s fact-checkers.

But even though the trip was primarily for business, there were ample opportunities to explore and enjoy the city. Among the highlights: a trip to El Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, home to Picasso’s Guernica; a taste of Basque tapas at the restaurant Txapela; and plenty of people-watching at El Mercado de San Miguel. (Oh, and did we mention the churros?)

Below, scroll through assorted scenes from Madrid, then click here for more coverage of Global Fact 4.

(L-R) Mark Stencel, Rebecca Iannucci and Riley Griffin enjoy churros at Chocolatería San Ginés.
(L-R) Bill Adair, Rebecca Iannucci and Erica Ryan get some work done at Campus Madrid.
Rebecca Iannucci presents the Reporters’ Lab’s FactPopUp tool to the Global Fact 4 audience. Photo credit: Mario Garcia.
Rebecca Iannucci presents the Reporters’ Lab’s FactPopUp tool to the Global Fact 4 audience. Photo credit: Mario Garcia.
Global Fact 4 boasted 188 attendees from 53 countries. Photo credit: Mario Garcia.
Rebecca Iannucci poses in front of Campus Madrid’s signage.
Bill Adair leads a standing ovation for Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network and organizer of Global Fact 4. Photo credit: Mario Garcia.
Rebecca Iannucci tries Gulas, a shredded fish dish, at El Mercado de San Miguel.
(L-R) Rising Duke senior Alex Newhouse, Riley Griffin, Erica Ryan and Rebecca Iannucci, after lunch in La Plaza Mayor.
(L-R) Riley Griffin, Bill Adair, Erica Ryan and Rebecca Iannucci, after lunch in La Plaza Mayor.
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Global Fact 4: Notes From Day 3

The Global Fact 4 summit came to a close Friday, after much reflection on the last year of fact-checking and discussion about future advancements in the industry.

Ana Pastor, director and anchor of Spain’s El Objetivo, and Guillermo Solovey of the Instituto de Cálculo held a Q&A on the rejection of facts by polarized populations. Later, Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute, argued that individual claims should no longer be the “atomic unit” of fact-checks. Following a presentation by representatives from Facebook and Google, and a panel on fake news, the day ended in a standing ovation for Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network and the organizer of the conference.

Below is our final roundup of noteworthy moments from the summit, from social media interactions to memorable slides.

Tweet of the day

Áine Kerr, manager of journalism partnerships at Facebook, and Philippe Colombet, head of strategic partnerships for news and publishers at Google, held a joint panel on how their respective platforms could benefit fact-checkers. During the Q&A, Mantzarlis asked the two technology experts if they would be willing to share data and metrics concerning the impact of their news initiatives with journalists. After Kerr and Colombet struggled to provide a definitive answer, some fact-checkers tweeted their concern about the lack of transparency between tech companies and the media. Phoebe Arnold, head of communications and impact at Full Fact, documented the moment in the tweet above. 

 Slide of the day

Aaron Sharockman, executive director of PolitiFact, led a presentation called “Funding for fact-checking: beyond foundations,” to teach resource-deficient organizations how to generate revenue, capitalize on crowdfunding and find investors. To emphasize his message, Sharockman put up a slide with a personal quote: “You cannot begin to charge for something until you know what it actually costs.” Sharockman’s parting advice to fact-checkers was to know their own value in the current political landscape and to take advantage of the increased awareness of the industry. 

Quote of the day

“Everyone says they’re interested in truth, but I’m not sure that they are.” — Ana Pastor, director of El Objetivo

Trust was a central topic of Friday’s Global Fact discussions, particularly as it applies to the waning trust between fact-checkers and their audience. During Pastor and Solovey’s conversation, they both addressed a major frustration for fact-checkers: Readers often reject facts that don’t align with their beliefs, choosing instead to live in a “news bubble” that only accepts one side of an argument.

“Realizing that something is a lie doesn’t change their perspectives,” Solovey said of readers who are deeply entrenched in their stances. Pastor also noted that “people don’t want their ideas questioned, they want them reaffirmed,” which contributes significantly to an audience’s lack of trust in fact-checkers and the collective media. 

For more coverage from Global Fact 4, check out the following articles:

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Fact-checking moves into the Google Home

A new Reporters’ Lab app allows users to “talk to Share the Facts.”

The new app for the Google Home taps the growing database of articles from the world’s fact-checkers to provide answers to voice queries. It is part of our Share the Facts project, which is expanding the reach of fact-checking around the world.

The Google Home app features fact-checks of claims by politicians and other public figures from Share the Facts partner organizations, including PolitiFact, The Washington Post’s Fact Checker and FactCheck.org.

The Share the Facts app, which is similar to one unveiled last fall for the Amazon Echo, uses natural speech recognition to analyze and answer questions from our database of roughly 9,000 fact-checks.

To activate it on your Google Home, say: “OK, Google, talk to Share the Facts.” Then ask questions such as:

  • “Did Donald Trump oppose the war in Iraq?”
  • “Was Obamacare a failure?”
  • “Is it true that Donald Trump said climate change was a hoax?”

Try to use the most important keywords in your question, following the examples above.

We welcome feedback on the Share the Facts app for the Google Home by emailing project manager Erica Ryan.

The app was unveiled at Global Fact 4 in Madrid, Spain, the annual meeting of the International Fact-Checking Network.

We also announced that the Share the Facts widget, which has been available in English, French, Polish and Italian, now has versions in German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Indonesian, Hindi and Japanese. The project is a partnership with the Google News Lab and Jigsaw, a technology incubator within Alphabet.  

The widget allows fact-checkers to get a “Fact Check” tag for their content in Google News and search results. Google uses the “Fact Check” label, launched in 2016, to find and distribute accurate content and to increase the visibility of quality journalism.

The widget also offers other benefits for fact-checkers. Each widget is a concise summary of a fact-check that can be shared on Facebook and Twitter. Participating fact-checkers can also be featured in new products like the Share the Facts apps for the Google Home and the Amazon Echo.

Three partners are testing the widget in the newly available languages: Aos Fatos of Brazil, Wiener Zeitung of Austria and El Confidencial of Spain. We hope to expand the widget soon to publishers in Indonesia, Japan and India.

Organizations interested in using the Share the Facts widget can find more information on the Share the Facts website or by emailing team@sharethefacts.org.

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Global Fact 4: Notes from Day 2

The second day of Global Fact 4 kicked off with welcome remarks from Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, Ana Pastor, anchorwoman for El Objetivo, and Bill Adair, director of the Duke Reporters’ Lab. Panels, Q&As, and breakout workshops took a deep dive into subjects ranging from automatic fact-checking to collaborative partnerships between media outlets. Highlights included Michelle Lee, who presented on the Washington Post’s latest project for fact-checking Donald Trump, and Wikimedia Foundation executive director Katherine Maher, who delivered a keynote speech about “the approximation of the truth.”

Each day, we’ll be collecting noteworthy moments from the summit, from social media interactions to memorable slides. Below are the highlights from Day 2 of the conference.

Tweet of the day

Farhad Souzanchi, the editor of Iran’s FactNameh, documented the crowd of 188 fact-checkers from 53 countries attending the plenary conference. Among the group were members from seven new fact-checking initiatives, based in such countries as South Korea and Norway.

Slide of the day

https://twitter.com/myhlee/status/882937457418932225

Full Fact, a nonprofit fact-checker in the United Kingdom, has partnered with Google to create innovative technologies for journalists. During a panel on automated fact-checking tools, Full Fact’s digital products manager, Mevan Babakar, explained the complex process of developing new fact-checking tools   like Trends and Robocheck — that identify viral disinformation and display pop-up fact-checks in real time. Referring to the slide, which illustrated the back end of an automated fact-checking tool, Babakar said, “This isn’t really sexy, but the products are.” Full Fact’s tools are still at the prototype stage, according to Babakar, but she anticipates they will one day be scalable across the industry.

Quote of the day

“At Wikipedia, we believe that an approximation of truth is all we can ever strive for.” — Katherine Maher, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation

At the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit organization that hosts Wikipedia — truth is an imperfect entity. The truth is malleable, biased, incomplete and ever-changing with the whims of history, executive director Katherine Maher said in her keynote speech. Although Maher does not consider herself a fact-checker, she believes in the pursuit of facts. During her speech, and in a Q&A with Poynter, Maher described how fact-checkers can take cues from Wikipedia when it comes to gaining readers’ trust and being as transparent as possible.

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Global Fact 4: Notes from Day 1

Global Fact 4, the annual gathering of fact-checkers around the world, is taking place July 5-7 in Madrid. Each day, we’ll be collecting noteworthy moments from the summit, from social media interactions to memorable slides. Below are the highlights from Day 1 of the conference.

Tweet of the day

The International Fact-Checking Network informally launched Global Fact 4 with a series of workshops about best practices for fact-checking, innovative tools and platforms for fact-checkers and the IFCN Code of Principles. Conference attendees can use #GlobalFact4 to contribute to the international dialogue surrounding fact-checking, fake news and freedom of the press.

Slide of the day

PolitiFact editor Angie Holan and Chequeado director Laura Zommer lectured 55 emerging fact-checkers on fundamental dos and don’ts of the practice during the Fact-Checking 101 workshop. For a claim to be checkable, Holan said it has to be feasible, factual and relevant, with enough evidence to deliver a verdict. Holan also said any claim based on an opinion does not meet those criteria — and journalists should avoid fact-checking them.

But it is not always that simple. Discerning factual claims from opinion is often difficult, Holan said. To illustrate her point, she brought up a statement from the National Republican Congressional Committee that sparked debate in the PolitiFact newsroom: “ISIS is infiltrating America and using Syrians to do it.” Was the claim checkable or not? Was it based on empirical evidence or opinion? Ultimately, PolitiFact determined there was sufficient empirical evidence to check the claim and come to a verdict: false.

Quote of the day

“Thanks to Donald Trump, ordinary Japanese people understand exactly what fake news is.” — John Middleton, co-founder of FactCheck Initiative Japan

The founders of FactCheck Initiative Japan spoke with the Reporters’ Lab about the need for fact-checking in a country where government influence and fake news are infecting public debate and news coverage. Middleton, a law professor at Hitotsubashi University, noted that misinformation had long existed in the Japanese media landscape, but the public did not take it seriously until Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

FactCheck Initiative Japan is one of at least seven new fact-checking operations attending Global Fact for the first time.

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At Global Fact 4: churros, courage and the need to expose propagandists

My opening remarks at Global Fact 4, the fourth annual meeting of the world’s fact-checkers, organized by the International Fact-Checking Network and the Reporters’ Lab, held July 5-7, 2017 in Madrid, Spain.

It’s wonderful to be here in Madrid. I’ve been enjoying the city the last two days, which has made me think of a giant warehouse store we have in the United States called Costco.

Costco where you go when you want to buy 10 pounds of American Cheese or a 6-pound tub of potato salad. Costco also makes a delicious fried pastry called a “churro.” And because everything in Costco is big, the churros are about three feet long.

When I got to Madrid I was really glad to see that you have churros here, too! It’s wonderful to see that Costco is spreading its great cuisine around the world!

I’m pleased to be here with my colleagues from the Duke Reporters’ Lab — Mark Stencel, Rebecca Iannucci and Riley Griffin. We also have our Share the Facts team here – Chris Guess and Erica Ryan. We’ll be sampling the churros throughout the week!

It’s been an amazing year for fact-checking. In the U.K., Full Fact and Channel 4 mobilized for Brexit and last month’s parliamentary elections. In France, the First Draft coalition showed the power of collaborations during the elections there. In the United States, the new president and his administration drove record traffic to sites such as FactCheck.org and PolitiFact and the Washington Post Fact Checker — and that has continued since the election, a time when sites typically have lower traffic. The impeachments and political scandals in Brazil and South Korea also meant big audiences for fact-checkers in those countries. And we expect the upcoming elections in Germany, Norway and elsewhere will generate many opportunities for fact-checkers in those countries as well, just as we’ve seen in Turkey and Iran. The popular demand for fact-checking has never been stronger.

Fact-checking is now so well known that it is part of pop culture. Comedians cite our work to give their jokes credibility. On Saturday Night Live last fall, Australian actress Margot Robbie “fact-checked” her opening monologue when she was the guest host.

Some news organizations not only have their own dedicated fact-checking teams, they’re also incorporating fact-checks in their news stories, calling out falsehoods at the moment they are uttered. This is a marvelous development because it helps to debunk falsehoods before they can take root.

We’ve also seen tremendous progress in automation to spread fact-checking to new audiences. There are promising projects underway at Full Fact in Britain and at the University of Texas in Arlington and in our own lab at Duke, among many others. We’ll be talking a lot about these projects this week.

Perhaps the most important development in the past year is one that we started at last year’s Global Fact conference in Buenos Aires – the Code of Principles. We came up with some excellent principles that set standards for transparency and non-partisan work. As Alexios noted, Facebook is using the code to determine which organizations qualify to debunk fake news. I hope your site will abide by the code and become a signatory.

At Duke, Mark just finished our annual summer count of fact-checking. Mark and Alexios like to tease me that I can’t stop repeating this mantra: “Fact-checking keeps growing.”

But it’s become my mantra because it’s true: When we held our first Global Fact meeting in 2014 in London, our Reporters’ Lab database listed 48 fact-checking sites around the world. Our latest count shows 126 active projects in 49 countries.

I’m thrilled to see fact-checking sprouting in countries such as South Korea and Germany and Brazil. And I continue to be amazed at the courage of our colleagues who check claims in Turkey and Iran, which are not very welcoming to our unique kind of journalism.

As our movement grows, we face new challenges. Now that our work is so well-known and an established form of journalism, governments and political actors are calling themselves fact-checkers, using our approach to produce propaganda. We need to speak out against this and make sure people know that government propagandists are not fact-checkers.

We also need to work harder to reach audiences that have been reluctant to accept our work. At Duke we published a study that showed a stark partisan divide in the United States. We found liberal publications loved fact-checking and often cited it; conservative sites criticized it and often belittled it. We need to focus on this problem and find new ways to reach reluctant audiences.

I’m confident we can accomplish these things. Individually and together we’ve overcome great hurdles in the past few years. I look forward to a productive meeting and a great year. And I’m confident:

Fact-checking will keep growing.

 

 

 

 

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