A message allegedly written by Bolivian President Evo Morales on his Twitter account congratulating drug traffickers Joaqín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán and Pablo Escobar on the occasion of Teacher’s Day on June 6 went viral in the country.
After a little more than eight months of preparation and arriving at agreements between organizations that support the new data verification initiative in the region, Uruguay has joined the fight against misinformation with the launch of fact-checking site Verificado.uy on July 22.
Jota and Verificado were recognized along with eight other news products during the World News Media Congress in Glasgow, Scotland on June 2.
One idea that permeated this year’s International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ) conference is that automation in journalism is no longer a thing for the future. It’s here and working right now, declared chair and presenter Bill Adair on April 12.
One of Peru’s digital investigative journalism sites and its largest radio broadcasting company have teamed up to verify public discourse and share their findings across the country.
With media today, identifying fact from fiction can be a challenge. Yet, it’s in this same environment that fact-checking organizations have sprouted and continue to grow around the globe.
WhatsApp has 120 million active users in Brazil, according to what the company reported in July this year. This number is equivalent to more than half of the Brazilian population, estimated at 208.5 million people.
Data verification, or fact-checking, of facts of public interest and declarations of public figures has become a worldwide trend. This practice goes back to one of the basic principles of journalism, like the contrasting of sources.
The year 2018 has posed several challenges for fact-checking initiatives in Brazil. In addition to general elections permeated by intense political polarization and the new weight of social networks in the dissemination of rumors, fact-checking professionals are also faced with the distrust of the public, still in doubt about the role of fact-checking in the Brazilian media environment.
For the Comprova (Prove) project, journalists from 24 media outlets will partner to cross-check content heavily circulated in Brazilian social networks that is related to elections.