As threats grow, fact-checkers double down on standards, IFCN report finds
Global demand for credibility has driven a record surge in applications to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles, the network’s new annual report shows. Despite mounting legal threats, online harassment and declining budgets, fact-checking organizations are “leaning into” public accountability rather than pulling back, the report says.
The network, based at the nonprofit Poynter Institute, reviewed 226 applications last year — 61 from first-time journalist groups and 165 from renewing signatories — and certified 116 of them. The roster now includes 182 verified fact-checking organizations across 57 countries, each committed to nonpartisanship, transparent funding, clear sourcing, a public methodology and an open corrections policy. First introduced in 2016, those standards have become the global benchmark for professional fact-checking.
Related Knowledge Center: Fact-checking and its detractors
Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.