Fact-checking 101: Step-by-step tips to check for errors, annotating your stories

By Brooke Borel

Email: brookeborel@gmail.com
Twitter: @brookeborel
Web: brookeborel.com

Disclaimer: This isn’t legal advice, and I’m not a lawyer. When in doubt, consult appropriate counsel.

What is editorial fact-checking?

• Independent person (outside of writer/editor/producer) double-checks facts in magazine story, radio piece, etc

• Primarily found in magazine newsrooms

• Includes both individual facts and big-picture truths (do all the facts add up to a reasonable truth?)

Why we fact-check:

• Nonfiction should be nonfiction: readers deserve factual info

• Reputation: if your stories have a lot of corrections, you lose reader/editor trust

• Liability: defamation, invasion of privacy, copyright. Other ethical (though not legal) issues such as plagiarism

• Don’t want corrections on clips for portfolios, fellowships apps, etc

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What to fact check:

• Everything

• Spelling of names and places

• Physical descriptions of people, places, things

• Dates

• Ages (still the same age as when the article was written?)

• Quotes

• Numbers

• Measurements (including conversions from, say, metric to imperial)

• Geography (is “three quarters of a mile southeast of Topeka” correct?)

• Scientific or technical explanations (does it really work the way it is written?)

• Titles, job descriptions, affiliations

• Details about products including prices, specs, descriptions

• Quotes from movies or other well-known media

• Historical quotes or stories that are widely assumed to be true

• Illustrations and photos, including the captions

• Specific word choices (words have different meanings in different fields)

• Even the thing you just checked last week

• Even things you think you know are true

• Seriously, everything. Even if it isn’t on this list

How to fact-check

Responsibilities:

• Story comes to fact-checker after it is done or nearly done

• Writer provides annotated story and back up material (usually via DropBox and the like)

• Fact-checker: checks individual facts, assesses back-up materials, looks at story as a whole

Steps:

• Read story at least once (and stories from other outlets, if applicable)

• Go through story and mark each fact

• Triage facts: contact sources early and make lists for their interviews, and then work on easier facts while you wait to hear back

Print files: create a system (color pens, highlighters, whatever works for you) and underline every fact. Check off once confirmed, and use copy-edit symbols when necessary.

 

Electronic files: save story as a new file and either highlight or boldface the text. Use track changes and annotations with brief explanations and source links where applicable. With each confirmed fact, remove highlight/bold.

Check all versions of a story to make sure corrections carried over.

Sourcing:

Use primary sources when possible, which may include:

• An actual living, breathing person (expert, eyewitness, etc)

• Interview recordings

• Published, peer-reviewed research (call outside experts when appropriate)

• Official transcripts of speeches, meetings, court proceedings, etc

• Official spokespersons or website of company/person/agency/etc

• Fact sheets or reports compiled by official agencies

• Maps and atlases

• Books (with caution: see below)

These are not primary sources:

• Wikipedia (can lead to good sources in references)

• Google searches (can lead to good sources)

• An article published by another outlet (some exceptions to this)

• A blog (some exceptions to this)

• That thing you heard on NPR that one time

• Your foggy memory from that class you took in college

Quotes:

Journalists debate how to fact check a quote. Here’s my take: Do not show the quote to sources or let them know you are reading the quote verbatim. The source almost always tries to change it, either to sound better or be less colorful. Quotes should reflect what a person actually said. No take backs.

• Listen to the interview recording (writer should provide timestamp. If you’re the writer, note timestamp when you are interviewing/writing)

• Check against transcript

• Paraphrase quote to source on the phone and tell them you’re only checking for factual accuracy

• Read quote to source on the phone and tell them you’re paraphrasing and want to check for factual accuracy

Keep in mind:

• Removing verbal tics like “er” or “um” is okay

• Light grammatical correction is usually okay, but check with your editor

• Swapping jargon for common word may be okay (get source’s permission)

• Complete rearrangement of wording is not okay

• Taking a quote out of context is not okay

• Making up quotes is really not okay

Exception: Long Q&As are usually edited for length and clarity. Check against a recording when possible; if not, do a phone check with the source.

Images:

• Is the person or thing in the photo the correct person or thing?

• Is the information in the caption accurate?

• Do illustrations, maps, and other art accurately depict their subject?

• Are illustrations, maps, etc., correctly labeled or annotated?

Source Relationship:

• Contact early to set up phone interview

• Prepare list of questions as you work through story

• Not everyone will be familiar with fact-checking — you may have to explain your role and coax them into responding

It’s generally considered inappropriate to send unpublished articles to a source. In some cases, it might be okay to send small snippets of text:

• If it is a small amount of copy explaining a highly technical process and has nothing controversial or opinion-based in it

• If it is a sensitive personal story (in very special circumstances)

• If the editor requires it (rare, but it does happen)

Tip: While fact checking technical details with a source, phrase each sentence as a question (but don’t tell them you are reading directly from the article): “Is it correct that your research suggests that Asian and European genomes are around 2 percent Neanderthal?”

For more sensitive material, try prompting the source to see if they’ll repeat whatever they originally told the writer: “Tell me what happened the night of the accident.” If you don’t get quite the same story, keep asking follow-up questions.

Vetting sources:

At some point, you just have to trust the sources you’ve decided to use or risk falling into an infinite fact-check loop. Minimize errors by picking sources wisely.

• If the source is a person: Are they trustworthy? Are they an expert in their field? Is their work controversial or do their peers seem to respect it? Where do they work? What are their political or financial ties—do they stand to benefit from presenting themselves or their work in a certain way?

• If the source is a book: Can you trust it? Books are rarely fact-checked. Look up the author’s credentials. Answer questions in previous point.

• If the source is a map or atlas: How old is it? Have there been major political or other changes that make, say, the borders of a country obsolete?

Record-keeping

• Keep back-up materials at least as long as statute-of-limitation expires for liabilities (differs per state)

• Make sure to keep track of who stets which sections (if editor reverted to original despite fact-checkers protest and the information is wrong, it’s not on the fact-checker)

• Organize by issue, story, etc. Doesn’t matter how you organize as long as it’s consistent—make sure you can find back up quickly in case you need to respond to reader letters, lawsuits, etc

• If keeping hard copy files, make sure to include a list where electronic-only files may be found (interview recordings etc)

• If primarily using electronic files, include Word documents with book copyright/title, locations where hard copies are held, or any other information that will help lead to the materials.

Fact-checking on a budget

Cutting corners can be risky, but if you’re on a tight budget you still may have to modify your practice.

• Prioritize potential liabilities, tricky technical explanations

• Be sure to check facts that are easy to find but also easy to mess up

• Put responsibility for quotes and other information from sources on writer

• Rely less on people (ex: official websites versus spokespeople/experts)

• If you can’t find primary sources in time, use multiple reliable secondary sources to confirm those facts

Final thoughts

• The facts may be objective, but the truth of a story is not

• Writer/editor/fact-checker may not agree on whether to change a fact. Be respectful and polite while working out differences (interpersonal relations are perhaps the most important fact-checking skills)

• Fact-checkers won’t win every battle, so pick fights wisely (if a claim opens the publication to ridicule or endangers someone, fight for the change. If it’s a minor point and could go either way, let it go)

• In the words of a great fact-checker: Hedge words are the error bars of fact-checking (sometimes, perhaps, may)

• You’ll make mistakes and it’ll be okay

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Brooke Borel is a contributing editor at Popular Science and a 2016 Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellow. She has written for the Guardian, the Atlantic, BuzzFeed News, PBS’s NOVA Next, and Undark, among others, and her books include Infested and The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking.