Poynter to hold Global Fact-Checking Summit

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., April 4, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- With fact-checking of politicians growing around the world, the Poynter Institute will convene the first Global Fact-Checking Summit, to be held in June in London.

The conference, at the London School of Economics on June 9-10, will bring together about 40 fact-checkers from places such as South Africa, Italy, Great Britain, Germany, India, the United States, South America and Eastern Europe.

The fact-checking of politicians is expanding rapidly around the globe, according to a new analysis from the Duke University Reporters' Lab. The Duke study found 59 fact-checking websites that have been active in the last few years, including 44 currently in operation.

About half of the sites are affiliated with newspapers, television networks or other legacy media organizations. The other half are run by startup companies or not-for-profit groups. Twenty-seven have started in the past two years.

The Global Fact-Checking Summit is sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy,  the Ford Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Duke Reporters' Lab, the British fact-checking site Full Fact, and craigconnects, the Web-based initiative to support philanthropy and public service run by Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist.

Topics will include the growth and challenges of fact-checking, the best techniques for researching claims, the pros and cons of rating systems, the use of crowdsourcing and the need to find sustainable business models.

"Fact-checking is quickly becoming an important new form of accountability journalism," said Poynter President Tim Franklin. "Poynter will play a leading role to help journalists do their best work and foster the growth of fact checking, which is vital to democracies around the
world."

The conference also represents Poynter's strategy to greatly expand its training initiatives across the globe. Last month, Poynter led a series of seminars for journalists in India. Next month, the institute will hold another session in Turkey.

Presenters at the fact-checking conference will include editors from PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning site in the United States, and Chequeado, an independent fact-checking site in Argentina, as well as Lucas Graves, a University of Wisconsin professor who is writing a book about the rise of fact-checking, and Bill Adair, a Duke University professor and adjunct faculty member at Poynter.

About The Poynter Institute

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is an international leader in journalism education, and a strategy center that stands for uncompromising excellence in journalism, media and 21^st century public discourse. Poynter faculty teach seminars and workshops at the Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., and at conferences and organizational sites around the world. Its e-learning division, News University, www.newsu.org, offers the world's largest online journalism curriculum, with more than 400 interactive courses and 280,000 students. The Institute's website, www.poynter.org, produces 24-hour coverage of news about media, ethics, technology, the business of news and the trends that currently define and redefine journalism news reporting. The world's top journalists and media innovators come to Poynter to learn and teach new generations of reporters, storytellers, media inventors, designers, visual journalists, documentarians and broadcast producers, and to build public awareness about journalism, media, the First Amendment and protected discourse that serves democracy and the public good.

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CONTACT
Bill Adair
Knight Professor of Journalism and Public Policy, Duke University;
Poynter Adjunct Faculty; Creator of PolitiFact
[email protected]

Wendy Wallace
Faculty/Grants Manager
The Poynter Institute
[email protected]

SOURCE The Poynter Institute