One of the biggest challenges in journalism today is the need to confirm and defend what a fact is. If you’re a regular reader of The Walrus, you probably know we fact-check to a very high standard. For the past year, our current and former heads of research—or fact-checkers-in-chief—Allison Baker and Viviane Fairbank, developed a fact-checking guide funded by the Michener–L. Richard O’Hagan Fellowship for Journalism Education. The guide is based on The Walrus’s own verification methods, which Fairbank designed and formalized, and incorporates consultations with a wide range of journalists, researchers, and other experts. What Baker and Fairbank have come up with is both a fact-checking primer and a tool for navigating ethical issues in journalism: from stories that involve stark power dynamics to best practices for reporting on sexual assault. Their free guide was presented at a three-day conference at Carleton University in October and is available at thetijproject.ca.
Fake news has been in the air for so long now that I worry we overemphasize the risk it poses while glossing over other imminent dangers to journalism, like the dwindling number of professional media outlets and shrinking revenue streams. But we still see the real-world consequences of mis- and disinformation, whether it’s in Russian interference in the recent US midterm elections, the spreading of online conspiracy theories by Alberta premier Danielle Smith, or policy changes at Twitter that have relaxed content moderation standards and amplified discriminatory speech.
