Library Guides: Today's News: Fact or Fiction: Fact-Checking Sites

Fact-Checking Sites

FactCheck.org
A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Hoax Slayer
Covers internet and email hoaxes and scams.
International Fact-Checking Network
Housed at the Poynter Institute, the Network promotes a code of principles. This page provides the code and a list of signatories.
Lead Stories LLC
A fact-checking site with special pages for "Red," "Blue," and "Coronavirus" misinformation.
MISBAR
An Arab platform for checking facts and exposing falsehood in the public arena. Covers US as well as the Arab countries.
Open Secrets
From the nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, the Center for Responsive Politics, the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.
Politifact
Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-check site.
Snopes
Award-winning fact-checking site.
The Washington Post Fact-Checker
While focused primarily on political facts, it covers specific claims in-depth and with plenty of cross-referencing.

Speciality Sites:

Climate Feedback
A worldwide network of scientists sorting fact from fiction in climate change media coverage.
Quote Investigator
Who really said that? Researcher Garson O'Toole reports on his quests for truth about quotations.
SciCheck
Focuses exclusively on false and misleading scientific claims that are made by partisans to influence public policy.

Search the Sites

Some internet search engines, such as Google and DuckDuckGo, have a "site" search function that can help you locate information on a specific site. Here's how you might use it:

Let's say you found an article in "The Christian Times Newspaper" stating that a Black supporter of Donald Trump had been shot in Chicago due to his political beliefs.

To see if a fact-checking site has investigated, you could search for words from the article, adding site:[domain name] for each fact-checking site you want to search. You can put OR between two or more sites.

Your search would look like [black trump supporter chicago site:snopes.com OR site:politifact.com], as shown in the screen capture below.

Your search results will lead you to a Snopes article showing that the claim is false:

The Snopes article will also show you why the claim was rated false: because the article is clickbait, intended to agitate a reader's emotions and get them to stay on the website. The posting site has a disclaimer that "some stories are satire, and some are speculation."