Fact-Checkers Innovate Amid Funding Changes and AI Rise

RIO DE JANEIRO — Fact-checking journalism around the world is at a crossroads. Democracies are weakening, social media platforms are withdrawing financial support, and the public is disengaging from the news. Against this backdrop, around 400 fact-checkers from 80 countries gathered in Rio de Janeiro at GlobalFact, the world’s largest fact-checking summit, hosted by the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute.

Despite the challenges facing the industry, the event’s panelists and attendees united behind a shared message — innovation is key. “The future of fact-checking rests on our ability to evolve methods while holding firm to our values,” International Fact-Checking Network director Angie Drobnic Holan said in her opening remarks.

Innovation can and has come in several forms. At the conference, fact-checkers shared creative collaborations, unique formats, and new AI initiatives as methods for ensuring their sustainability.

Carving a Space for Fact-Checking in Artificial Intelligence

The rise of artificial intelligence models has presented several challenges for fact-checkers. Disinformers use AI to create false content, and the generative AI tools that audiences are increasingly using as search engines often spread misinformation. “These tools hallucinate, a pleasant way of saying they make things up,” Holan said. “If they were human beings, we would say they lie.”

Brazilian journalist Patrícia Campos Mello recounted an example. A few months ago, users asked Google AI how to prevent cheese from sliding off pizza. The solution? Nontoxic glue, the tool said. This case, Campos Mello said, is evidence that technology companies need quality, fact-checked information to train their models. “What gives me hope is that journalism and the journalistic process is still essential,” Campos Mello said. “Otherwise, technology ‘can’t survive. I’m not sure if they realize that. They’re not getting this information from the air — there is a reporter going after this information.’”

Andrew Dudfield, head of AI at the London-based fact-checking organization Full Fact, told attendees to consider what the word “generative” in generative AI means. “As I’m concerned, it means making something up,” Dudfield said. “And none of the companies who are producing these things want them to get it wrong. All of these chat interface people want to be right.”

To train artificial intelligence models, companies need data. This presents a challenge: Fact-checking organizations’ data is at times used without the newsroom’s knowledge or consent, said Marie Bohner, head of development and partnerships for Agence France-Presse. But it also creates opportunities. Clara Jiménez Cruz, CEO of Spanish fact-checking organization Maldita, said her organization has sold and licensed its data. Fact-checker’s data is “a value” to people training AI models, said Chris Morris, CEO of Full Fact. “Because they want to better train those models to do what we’re really good at, which is to recognize facts and to recognize deception.”

Shifting Business Models and Seeking New Collaborations

As Big Tech companies divert revenue away from fact-checking initiatives, journalism leaders urged newsrooms to think creatively. “No funding stream lasts forever nor should we expect it to last forever,” Morris said. “Always look for ways to reinvent yourself, both in the products you produce, but also in the way you fund yourself.” Morris advised fact-checking organizations to find their strengths and to determine how those can best be used “to operate in a new and quite confusing world.”

Panelists described partnerships with nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, and private companies as avenues to diversify revenue sources. But they highlighted the importance of maintaining editorial independence and credibility with each project fact-checkers take on. Throughout the course of the three-day conference, fact-checkers emphasized the need to remain nimble and evolve. “We have to deal with the world as it is, not with the world as we wanted it to be,” Morris said.