Tools for fact checking are used for verifying facts in a non-fictional media text. They are very helpful for the work of fact checkers and journalists, as well as for any other citizens who would like to check if the content of a published text is true.

There are several organisations that are specialised in developing tools for fact checking. The Reporters’ Lab of Duke University maintains a global database of fact checking sites. According to their 2018 report, there are 149 fact checking projects in 53 countries, and most of them operate in Europe and the United States.

Fact checking tools can be distinguished by the type of content to be checked, like articles, photos, videos.

Articles: One of the best-known sites to check the content of news articles is FactCheck.org, operated by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Its team checks the accuracy of statements by political players from the U.S.. Fullfact.org is the UK’s independent fact checking charity. Since January 2019, Fullfact provides fact checking services to Facebook.

Photos: The TinEye’s reverse image search tool can help to determine when a photo was taken. Moreover, it shows on which other sites on the web the image has been published.

Videos: Amnesty International’s Youtube DataViewer works similar to TinEye’s, because it shows other uploads of the searched video with date. Therefore, it is really helpful when someone needs to find the original version of a video.

Google also operates two fact checking tools: the Fact Check Explorer and the Fact Check Markup Tool. Both of them aim to help the work of fact checkers, journalists and researchers.

Some fact checkers from the NEWSREEL countries:

In Germany, Correctiv is working for Facebook as a fact checker and publishes some fact checks on its web page as well. Many media houses like the public broadcaster ARD, Spiegel Online and other national and local media outlets have their own fact checking sections and publish fact checks more or less frequently. Another German speaking fact checking initiative is Mimikama, an Austrian non-profit organisation, which has been checking mainly social media sites for fake news since 2011.

Polígrafo is the only fact checking platform in Portugal, which started at the end of 2018.

In Romania, Factual is the best-known fact checker.

In Hungary, the only fact checking portal is operated by the think tank of the government (factcheck.hu).

The academic debate of the term public sphere is not yet closed. In the view of the spread of mass media and the increasingly complex mass societies, its most prominent exponent Jürgen Habermas understood a rational and open discourse, which includes private and state actors and revolves around issues of the common good, as a fundamental social process in modern societies. Habermas’ theory aroused as much interest as critique. To an ideal public sphere, all citizens have free and equal access: They participate in an ongoing, spontaneous and uncensored debate, irrespective of their status such as class, race or gender, listen open-mindedly to the arguments of strangers, and rationally decide on the structure and tasks of the state. Accordingly, the evolution of public opinion could be understood as a chain of interlocking discourses.

Further theoretical discussions pointed to the fact, that even the ideal public sphere of Habermas excluded a wide range of voices and views, while being open to manipulation by state actors and interest groups. The mass media, namely the printed press, radio and television, assumed a central role in those theories as only issues and perspectives picked up and amplified by the mass media can achieve a general awareness in democratic societies. As such, the media is a central pillar of democratic societies, helping its audiences to manage the flood of news, reducing and clarifying complexity, and allowing for social integration. As studies have shown, mass media usually frames deviant opinions from counter publics such as social movements negatively, thus preserving the status quo of the hegemonic public sphere.

Political developments such as the growing closer of the European Union as well as technological developments such as the digitalisation of communication channels raised hopes of a less segmented public sphere. So far, these expectations have been disappointed. Instead of a flourishing of border crossing one-to-one communication on the Internet, and social media serving as a communication and mobilization tool for grassroots movements and marginalized groups, digital debates today often feature extreme opinions, populism, social division and cyber-cascading (group polarization).

Coding is a term to describe the assignment of a code or a classification to something. It is also a method that allows intercommunication of humans with computers. Coding languages are used to instruct computers what actions to perform.

Computers work with thousands of transistors, devices that amplify or switch electric signals. Each transistor receives a binary code (1s and 0s) to turn on and off; all transistors working together create a computer. Manually typing the code for each transistor would take a lot of time, so coding languages were developed to speed up the process.

A coding language is a set of rules defining how codes should be written. Examples are Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, C and R.

Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR) describes the use of computers and database analysis for a news story. The development of the Internet and a deep understanding of the importance of public access to data (in part, as a result of Freedom of Information legislation) increased dramatically the information available online. Consequently, the ability to organize, analyze and find data online is vital for a journalist.

CAR is a continuously evolving field and nowadays it is easier than ever to use thanks to the massive amounts of data conglomerated by online search engines and to freely available software that make data more accessible.

A journalist is applying CAR by simply using search engines like Google or Bing, fact checking an information online, or gathering information for a future interview. Finding information online often is faster and easier than searching without digital support. In addition, there is the possibility to gather, analyze and identify trends using data.

There are many benefits for utilizing CAR: accessibility of internet resources, international connection, and data analysis that is faster and more precise.

See also:

Open data

Data mining

Cross-media means to tell a story on different media platforms, such as print, radio, TV, online and social media. When a cross-media working journalist does an interview, s/he does not only take notes or record it with a recording device but records it with a video camera instead. Thus, the interview is used as the basis for a written article to be published in print or online but also as a video or audio to be published on the website.

More and more newsrooms are working cross-media. They distribute their content to various existing platforms, link them with each other and refer to other content. A daily newspaper for example can refer under an article covering an event to a corresponding picture gallery on its website. A TV newscast can point to more information on a specific topic in a special report available online. The aim should be to add value for the user, not just to distribute content on as many channels as possible.

In his book “Crossmedia”, German journalist and lecturer Christian Jakubetz (2011) has drawn up a comprehensive checklist for newsrooms working cross-media: They need to ask themselves 1) which content to use in which situation, 2) which technical requirements are needed, 3) how synergies can be created between the contents, 4) what the best time-frame for publication is, 5) if all publication rights for all platforms are clarified, 6) if there is added value for the user and 7) if all contents fit to the brand of the medium and its style.

The term crowdsourcing is a neologism combining the terms “crowd” und “outsourcing” and was coined by Jeff Howe in 2006 . By the implementation of crowdsourcing, journalists for example can navigate a larger number of documents than they could on their own, asses the public interest of potential investigations, and access information that normally would be out of their reach.

The “human cloud” can be used for a wide range of tasks, such as the recognition of texts and images, the verification or analysis of video contents, the creation of knowledge, the improvement or creation of products such as smartphone apps or scientific research (Hoßfeld et al. 2012). Tasks can be differentiated between simple, routine, complex and creative tasks. Industrial crowdsourcing usually works with monetary incentives, other incentives might be virtual game points, social reputation, or individual joy of problem solving or supporting others.

While routine tasks often involve simple assessments or the insertion of links, complex and creative tasks need to be split in microtasks in order not to overwhelm the collaborators. Well known examples of crowdsourcing in journalism are the Guardian’s call to investigate documents on the expenses of members of the British parliament and the Huffington Posts call to examine the leaked e-mails of U.S. politician Sarah Palin.

Most German journalists gain their vocational training in a media organisation by a so-called “Volontariat” – a traineeship in journalism which lasts between 12 and 24 months depending on the media house and the respective previous education and experience of the trainee.

Trainees usually pass through different beats (such as politics, business, sports) to get to know their specific peculiarities and take part in journalism training courses from journalism schools and academies lasting several weeks.

According to the German Federation of Journalists, around 80 percent of young journalists do a traineeship in a media organisation. With 1,200 positions, daily newspapers provide most of them, followed by magazines (ca. 800), regional and local private radio stations (more than 500) and public broadcasting (around 300). Traineeship positions at news agencies remain in the double-digit range. There are no figures available on how many positions there are in online media.

Around 90 percent of the trainees have studied, more than 70 percent have an academic degree – not necessarily in journalism, but in all kinds of study courses. However, lately, many newsrooms have been looking for science graduates.

At most a third of all trainees are offered a working contract as a journalist from the media organisation at the end of their traineeship.

What is known today as investigative journalism has its roots in muckraking, a journalistic trend that spiked between 1890 and 1920 in the USA with the aim of exposing institutional or corporate wrong-doing. Those journalistic pioneers investigated among others unsafe working conditions in the meat industry, inhuman conditions in mental health hospitals or corruption due to a monopoly in the oil industry. Their publications raised public anger and awareness and led to litigation or changes in legislation.

Investigative journalism is also known as watchdog journalism and closely linked to the professional self-image of journalists all over the world (KAS 2010, Hunter 2011). It aims at the investigation of issues of public concern, exposing wrong-doing by governments, corporations or individuals such as power abuse or corruption. One of the most famous examples of investigative journalism certainly was the Watergate Scandal in 1974, when the reporting of The Washington Post’s reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led to the resignation of US president Richard Nixon.

Investigative journalism today often makes use of different tools such as data bases of public records, legal documents such as tax records, government reports or legal documents, scientific reports, and interviews with official sources as well as anonymous whistleblowers. With the emergence of Freedom of Information laws increasingly more data from government and other state institutions can be accessed by journalists.

As such investigations are often time-consuming and therefore costly, most legacy media struggle to finance such investigations on a regular basis in the view of financial cuts due to the loss of advertising revenues. Lately, media outlets and journalists revived investigative journalism by working collaboratively and across newsrooms and national borders as in the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ is a non-profit association that organises media organisations, journalists and NGOs with an interest in collaborative, investigative journalism and as of August 2019 has 249 members from over 90 countries. It was founded in 1997 to support its members with contacts, a secure infrastructure, training and networking possibilities, and it has led several high-profile investigations like the Pulitzer-Prize winning Panama Papers. Increasingly, foundations and philanthropists fund investigative journalists through long- and short-term grants.

Encryption is a cryptographic method of converting information into a format that can only be interpreted by anyone who has the key to decipher the message. The science of cryptography, the encryption of messages, was invented in ancient times, but for a long time only military and diplomatic messages were encrypted. In the 20th century, cryptography has become widespread in business and economy, and with the advent of digital networks it became a part of everyday life. At the same time, the mission of cryptography expanded: besides encrypting messages, data and information protection, i.e. information security, have become a field where cryptography is applied. Network communication uses a variety of encryption procedures to ensure that messages are accessed only by authorized users, to authenticate communication participants, preserve the integrity of data, and prevent unauthorized modifications. It has become a common practice to encrypt messages on computer networks, using a variety of encryption tools (algorithms, protocols and applications) in areas such as access controls, protecting banking transactions and e-commerce, or conducting of electronic voting.

The use of encryption procedures in online communication is becoming increasingly important to journalists' work as they need to protect their sources and the obtained data. The encryption application Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) was originally developed to protect email messages, but today it can be used to encrypt other files and mass storage, even to create digital signatures to verify the authenticity of documents. Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology was designed to allow corporate employees to securely connect to their workplace network, but today a variety of VPN providers allows bypassing Internet Service Provider (ISP) servers and hides Internet activities while ensuring the protection of data. On the other hand, VPN can also be used to bypass restrictions on access to the Internet at various organizational levels (in workplaces, states, etc.). For similar purposes, the use of the Tor browser makes it almost impossible to monitor online activities while using a hidden network on the Internet, which allows Internet users to communicate privately and browse websites anonymously.

Surveillance is a fundamental phenomenon of modern societies. As the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1975) pointed out, several institutions (e.g. prisons, asylums, hospitals, schools, factories) and systems have been set up to monitor, track, manage and control the population, and as such the behaviour of individuals in these societies. Modern surveillance is closely linked to the development and spread of communication technologies. In contemporary societies, surveillance is no longer just about using visual tools, such as security cameras or closed circuit TV (CCTV) or interception, but also includes capturing, collecting and analysing data generated on computer networks. All of this points to the ubiquitous nature of surveillance in information societies, as surveillance tools and systems are increasingly interconnected. In this way, smart devices, applications, and social media, which are becoming more and more commonplace every day, can not only contribute to the democratization of technology and knowledge, but also to the increasing control and influence of various power organizations and systems over the population.

As such, surveillance is a contentious phenomenon, as it can serve to protect persons, things and places being monitored, but it can also be a tool of invading privacy. Surveillance Studies, which critically examine this topic, emphasize the negative characteristics of the phenomenon, demonstrating control and power between observer and observed. Surveillance is characterized by information asymmetry, as observed individuals know less about observers than reversely. In addition, this activity is hidden, even if observed persons are aware of the activity, they have no control over the handling of their information. Furthermore, the observed individuals have no way to avoid digital surveillance.

David Lyon, leading scholar in the field of Surveillance Studies, distinguished three forms of surveillance in cyberspace (1998): related to marketing, to employment, and to security and policing. Digital technology has provided companies with new marketing tools for tracking and profiling customers in order to cluster their behaviour by social type and location; digital monitoring and control of employees' activities in the workplace has become commonplace; and digital surveillance is being carried out by governmental organizations such as the police and secret services.