How to Fact-Check the News

There’s growing concern about a lack of accuracy in claims particularly in politics — as well as a growing army of professional journalist fact-checkers trying to uncover the truths and untruths in today’s rhetoric.

This course will sharpen your ability to recognize which claims can be checked (and which ones can’t), where to start when working on a fact-check, how best to interact with expert sources, how to write the article when you’ve finished your reporting, and a bit about how my outlet, PolitiFact.com, has led the way in contemporary fact-checking.

Handouts:
- Presentation slides and notes

Who should take this training:
- Journalists whose work intersects with (or may soon intersect with) formal fact-checking articles
- Editors considering including more fact-checking articles in their mix of stories
- Beginning journalists seeking tips on how to research and write stories

About the Instructor:

Louis Jacobson is the senior correspondent for PolitiFact and a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Times. He writes a twice-monthly freelance column on state politics for Governing magazine. He is also senior author of The Almanac of American Politics 2016 and The Almanac of American Politics 2018. Previously, he served as deputy editor of Roll Call and as founding editor of its legislative wire service, CongressNow. Before that, he spent more than a decade covering politics, policy and lobbying for National Journal magazine. He received a 2017 Best in Business award for economics writing from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers as well as the 2014 Weidenbaum Center Award for Evidence-Based Journalism from Washington University in St. Louis.