“Hands-On Fact-Checking: A Short Course” was created by Poynter’s News University and the American Press Institute, and funded by Google News Lab. Designed for college students as a self-directed course or as a resource for classroom instructors, the approximately 90-minute course includes lessons on identifying reliable sources in fact-checking, debunking viral misinformation, and deciding whether a statement is really checkable.
The course opened on April 2, 2018, the date of the second International Fact-Checking Day which highlights journalistic and research fact-checking efforts around the world. This course demonstrates best practices developed and tested by today’s fact-checking journalists, who face particular challenges posed by misleading rhetoric from politicians and government officials and the use of social media platforms as launching sites for viral misinformation.
We’d like to thank fact-checkers and other journalists and researchers across the globe for their work on the stories, videos, studies and advice included in this course. We hope you enjoy it and we look forward to your feedback. For more news and information about fact-checking and accountability journalism, subscribe to our newsletter, follow Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network, and find resources at API’s BetterNews.org.
