Fact-checking as an act of courage
Why even bother?
The unnerving question echoed in my head as I lectured.
Hours after Donald Trump’s inauguration speech filled with false claims, I delivered a surreal class to journalism students about fact-checking, wondering internally if journalism’s seemingly meagre arsenal can mount any challenge to misinformation’s mighty militia.
I mouthed the usual – normative – words about the “essential value” of journalists as truth-tellers. Journalists as watchdogs. Journalists as megaphones for marginalized voices. Journalists as fact-checkers, holding the line on a fact-based democratic discourse.
I felt like fake news.
Despite my involvement in studying and teaching fact-checking, and even building an online tool to combat fake information, I can’t shake off the nagging doubts about its effectiveness. Like a bad debt, these doubts haunt me in the classroom and even in the rough-and-tumble gotcha world of public speaking.
DOUBTS ABOUT FACT-CHECKING
Last summer, as part of a panel discussion about disinformation and elections, Paul Martin’s former communications guru Scott Reid cornered me, impishly asking if fact-checking even worked. The long-time political operative prefaced his question by highlighting Trump’s seeming superpower, inuring him to the lashes of fact-checking from the dutiful chroniclers of his mega-mendacity such as FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and CNN’s Daniel Dale.
I dutifully recited a long list of social science evidence pointing to how fact-checking reduces belief in misinformation and “has a significantly positive overall influence on political beliefs.” Admittedly, I said, fact-checking rarely pierces Trump supporters’ filter bubbles, noting a 2020 study that concluded journalists’ efforts to fact-check Trump’s misstatements do improve factual accuracy, even among Republicans and Trump supporters. Yet, it doesn’t make much of a difference at the ballot box, meaning that, as the study found, Trump voters seem to take “fact-checks literally but not seriously.”
Again, like at the start of my recent lecture citing this same research, I was mouthing the words, but I felt uncertain.
And I know that I count many fellow travellers among journalists. An exploratory study I published with a colleague in 2023 suggests many Canadian journalists and journalism educators doubt – at some level – the effectiveness of fact-checking. They, like me, worry it doesn’t correct misconceptions.
TRUMP TRIGGERS PROFOUND QUESTIONS ABOUT JOURNALISM
Last fall, a provocative keynote address kicking off a national conference seeking to reimagine political journalism reconfigured my thinking about why fact-checking may not work with some in this current post-truth moment.
Jeet Heer argues we can no longer see the world through the lenses of left and right. Instead, we must think of people as either pro-system or anti-system.
This elegant conceptualization of our bifurcated world resonated with me. For someone who grew up in a coal-mining town, I know at a cellular level that fact-checking comes across to some people as urban-elite smugness and smartypants nitpicking. This is, in part, an image fed to us by people who want to erode our trust in any and all systems –– the federal government, our health authorities, public schools and, of course, journalism. I also know that there are people everywhere, rural or urban, working-class or white-collar, who are eager to defend those institutions, despite what divisive narratives would like us to believe.
Trump’s political resurrection ratcheted up my doubts about fact-checking. Indeed, his re-election triggered profound soul-searching about the core of journalism’s value – its credibility and trustworthiness.
Hours after Trump’s win, The Guardian notably published a defiant manifesto to meet the “extraordinary” and “devastating” moment, urging its readers to “Help us to hold him to account.” Some venerated journalists even wondered aloud if the “best parts of journalism” still work.
A lot of recent political science, in fact, shows that the usual “us versus them” dynamics in politics have become intensely polarized, to the point that partisans increasingly dislike their opponents and hate the idea of their kids marrying someone from the opposing team. This fuels a red-hot lava current of anger and resentment that leaves people vulnerable to being manipulated and willing to accept anything that will benefit their team and hurt the other camp— “owning the Libs” for Republicans in the United States, for example, is everything. While this anti-system crowd tends to dismiss the news media’s fact-checking practices, it’s not the majority.
KEEP CALM AND FACT-CHECK ON
Despite sweeping claims about the prevalence of misinformation and disinformation, research published last year concluded that widespread exposure to false information is much smaller than it often gets characterized. The study found that “exposure to false and inflammatory content is concentrated among a narrow fringe” of people motivated to look for this type of information.
People are also smart and discerning when presented with facts. Recall the pretence for the United States-led invasion of Iraq. Public opinion eventually shifted when it became clear that no weapons of mass destruction existed.
Reality has a way of asserting itself.
Remember, study after study shows fact-checking works. Media literacy remains an effective tool for helping people critically evaluate information.
Even amid a storm of disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, eight in 10 Canadians trusted medical advice enough to decide to get at least one jab. And seven in 10 Canadians worry about climate change despite persistent claims that “it’s all a hoax.”
And so-called second-generation fact-checking organizations such as Africa Check have had success intervening structurally to promote accuracy and truth in public discourse.
While Trump appears to have some immunity to fact-checking, research clearly shows that fact-checking can deter politicians from making false or misleading statements and even improve political behaviour.
NO OVERNIGHT FIX
This evidence assuages my doubts about fact-checking.
In fact, my doubt ebbed, and the reflux of passion to inspire my journalism students swelled when I got to this list of studies in my recent lecture.
“Keep correcting the record with your fact-checking reporting,” I implored my students.
And while they’re doing their part, I’ll continue to study fact-checking and promoting best practices.
Plus, I’ll continue to curate and update these online tools to help the public and journalists combat misinformation and disinformation.
All this fact-checking might also boost the credibility of news and journalists during a time of falling confidence.
It is, of course, essential to be clear-eyed about the limits of fact-checking.
The problem we face, as Tom Rosenstiel, the former director of the American Press Institute, aptly emphasized in 2017, “is not like plumbing, a problem you fix. It is a social condition, like crime, that you must constantly monitor and adjust to.”
While the enormity of our current condition triggers my doubt at times, cynicism feels indulgent and cowardly, whereas fact-checking at this moment feels like an act of courage.
Brooks DeCillia spent more than twenty years reporting and producing news with CBC. These days, he teaches journalism and studies public opinion and fact-checking at Mount Royal University.