Fact Check's return perfect timing in 'post truth' age of alternative facts and fake news
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We have a US President repeating spurious claims, a global proliferation of websites feeding fake news to the gullible, and media prominence given to politicians who seem to believe the endless repetition of wrong facts makes them right.
There are now so-called "alternative" facts, and for some seeking or holding public office, even alternative realities.
Australia, we are told, is in danger of being swamped by Muslims, the Port Arthur massacre never happened and all asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat are "illegal immigrants".
Despite attempts to debunk fake news, social media serves as an incubator for pernicious myth making and character assassination.
So it's perfect timing for the return of Fact Check to ABC news outlets next month.
Re-launched Fact Check, now a joint publishing venture with RMIT's School for Communications and Media, seeks to lift the level of public policy debate by interrogating the accuracy of claims made by individuals and pressure groups seeking to shape policy.
As it did previously, Fact Check will bring context to contested facts, investigate the supporting data and hold those publicly pushing erroneous claims to account with nuanced verdicts.
Fact Check has never been about "gotcha" — ridiculing a group or a person for a silly slip or an off the cuff remark — and is strictly agenda free. Nor is it about securing a particular outcome or policy change.
Appetite for accurate information growing across US, Europe
With anxious talk about the arrival of a "post fact", "post truth" age, some commentators argue fact check journalism is central to the democratic tradition.
In a political milieu swirling with claims and counter claims, fact checking can provide an antidote to ignorant, wrongheaded and deliberate falsehoods.
The proliferation of fact check sites in the US and Europe, and the increased public engagement with and reliance on fact checking outlets, suggests a growing public appetite for accurate information.
The election of US President Donald Trump and its bizarre aftermath, the bitter debate in the UK over Brexit and sensational claims around refugees in France and Italy have sharpened the demand for closer scrutiny of what is said by players on all sides of the ideological divide.
In the US, established fact checking sites are being increasingly relied on. The number of visitors to the Washington Post's fact checking page is up 50 per cent since the Trump election.
Media outlets such as The New York Times, AP, CNN, and ABC America that are energetically checking political claims publish to bigger and bigger audiences and readerships.
Independent fact checking sites such as FactCheck.org and Politfact are finding fundraising less of a problem.
In Europe the situation is similar. According to the Reuters Institute, in the past decade independent fact checkers have emerged in more than 50 countries with some 113 groups active today.
More than 90 per cent have been established in the last seven years. All these sites aim to hold public figures to account for making false statements.
Fact Check 'aims to reduce level of deception and confusion'
But for fact checking to be effective it must be impartial, not play favourites, and apply the same standards in each and every fact check.
Fact checkers must be accountable to readers and the public, they must promptly correct errors, publish legitimate reader concerns and be utterly transparent in their methodology and processes. The same level of rigor must where possible be applied to every fact check.
This was ABC Fact Check's approach.
In well over 400 fact checks over three years no verdict was successfully challenged, few formal complaints were every received through the complaints process and none of them were upheld.
That is not to say those who did not like the outcome never criticised verdicts. They did and that is a healthy part of the process.
The RMIT ABC Fact Check partnership will be no different. It is a nonpartisan, non-profit collaboration that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion around the public policy issues and debates.
It will scrutinise the factual accuracy of claims made by influential figures, including politicians, lobby groups and organisations made in TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.
The partnership aspires to apply the best practices of both journalism and academic scholarship to further public knowledge and understanding.
Like ABC Fact Check, the partnership will not check claims made by the media. Determinations will be published on ABC and RMIT platforms including online, TV, radio and social media.
Look out for more from us in the weeks to come.
Russell Skelton is the director of RMIT ABC Fact Check and the founding editor of ABC Fact Check.
Topics: media, industry, journalism, education, university-and-further-education, australia
