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Celebrating Women Who Are Making Democracy Stronger

Anne Morley

March 26, 2019

By Anne Gleich, Jessica Harris, and Jessica Mahone

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In the first presidential proclamation celebrating women’s contributions to United States history, President Reagan observed: “American women of every race, creed and ethnic background helped found and build our Nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways … Their diverse service is among America’s most precious gifts.”

As pioneers, teachers, mothers, soldiers, journalists, inventors, lawmakers, laborers and so many other roles, women have and continue to make vital contributions to American economic, political, and social life. Throughout our history, women have not only advocated to secure their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but were also early leaders in the abolitionist, temperance, mental health, labor, and social reform movements, as well as the modern civil rights movement. It is not hyperbole to say that the United States has been transformed by these generations of women, and our democracy has been strengthened through their courage, creativity, and persistence.

As we commemorate Women’s History Month at Democracy Fund, we also want to take some time to celebrate our incredible women-led and women-focused grantees who today are continuing this long tradition of public service and leadership.

Women are leading efforts to improve our elections and make sure every vote counts.

At Democracy Fund, we believe that voting is the cornerstone of our democracy. Through our Elections Program, we are proud to support many innovative American women who are leading efforts to ensure our elections are free, fair, accessible, and secure.

Tianna Epps Johnson, founder of the Center for Technology and Civic Life, is building free and low-cost tech tools to help local election officials better engage with their communities and modernize elections. Electionline, run by Editor-in-Chief Mindy Moretti, is providing news and information about election administration and reform across all 50 states and has created a hub for elections officials to network, learn from each other, and collaborate on ways to improve the voting process.

When it comes to accessibility, many Americans still face barriers that prevent them from participating in the election process. Michelle Bishop and the National Disability Rights Network are educating election officials, equipment vendors, advocates, and the public on the need for fully accessible elections. Terry Ao Minnis, Democracy Fund Senior Fellow and Director of the Census and Voting programs at Asian Americans for Advancing Justice, is working to ensure a fair and accurate Census so that all Americans receive the resources and assistance they need to participate in our democracy. And Whitney Quesenbery and Dana Chisnell at the Center for Civic Design are bringing user experience principles to the design of forms and tools that will make voting easier for all voters. Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg at CIRCLE at Tufts University and the historic League of Women Voters, under the leadership of Virginia Kase, are innovating new ways to inform and engage women voters across the political spectrum.

Jennifer Morrell, a former Colorado election official, is working with state election officials to develop and implement new testing and auditing procedures to ensure votes are counted correctly, and results are reported accurately. And Mari Dugas and the Cyber Security Project and Defending Digital Democracy has published several playbooks to help campaign and election officials defend themselves against cyberattacks and information operations aimed at undermining trust in the American election system.

Women from both sides of the aisle are working together to create a Congress that looks more like America.

Even though we just saw a historic election cycle where a record-setting number of women ran for elected office and won, we still have a long way to go until women are fully represented in the United States. That is why, through our Governance Program, Democracy Fund is proud to support many leaders and organizations that are working to equip women with the skills they need to participate in politics, run for office, and lead once elected.

ReflectUS, a nonpartisan coalition working to increase the number of women in office and achieve equal representation across the racial, ideological, ethnic, and geographic spectrum, is fostering collaboration among seven of the nation’s leading training organizations to help equip more women to run, win, and serve. The Women’s Public Leadership Network aims to increase the number of women under consideration for political and government-related appointments and is growing a network and support system for conservative women who are interested in running for elected office or participating in our political system. Latinas Lead, a new program from The National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators, helps current Latina state legislators scale the leadership ranks in their State Capitols, as well as recruit potential Latina candidates for state-level office.

Once women are elected, the National Foundation of Women Legislators provides resources and opportunities to develop leadership skills and build professional and personal relationships across the aisle through regular conferences, state outreach, educational materials, and more. The Women’s Congressional Policy Institute, lead by Cindy Hall and a bipartisan board of female former legislators, has been bringing women policymakers together across party lines to advance issues of importance to women and their families for over twenty years. With our support, they have also launched several programs to foster women’s leadership on Capitol Hill through the Congressional Women’s Caucus and the Women Chiefs of Staff Program. We are also supporters of the Congressional Women’s Softball Game— a yearly event to foster bipartisan relationships between women Members of Congress and their counterparts in the D.C. Press Corps.

Women journalists are holding our leaders accountable and creating opportunities for the next generation of reporters.

Women play a vital role in holding leaders accountable once they’ve been elected. Although the majority of journalism and communications graduates are women, the majority of newsroom workers, particularly leaders, are men. Holding leaders accountable to all Americans requires a news industry that is inclusive and represents all communities, which is why, through our Public Square Program, we are proud to support organizations and leaders that are working to change America’s newsrooms and create new resources to inform and serve their communities.

By pioneering innovative new methods that newsrooms can use to better listen to and collaborate with the communities they serve, Bettina Chang at CityBureau and Sarah Alvarez and an all-woman staff at Outlier Media are rethinking how journalism is done. The Obsidian Collection, led by Angela Ford, is working to promote the importance of Black media in the United States, preserve the stories of Black communities through archiving, and build a blueprint for future generations in Black media.

Founded by Nikole Hannah Jones, The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting is dedicated to increasing the number of and retaining reporters and editors of color in the field of investigative reporting by providing low-cost regional trainings in the use of advanced technology, open records laws, advanced interviewing techniques and other investigative techniques. The Ida B. Wells Society partners with organizations such as the National Association for Black Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to provide access to journalists and aspiring journalists of color who want to sharpen their investigative reporting skills and broaden their professional networks.

Take the Lead’s 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism training program harnesses the collective power of women in journalism to build a more just and equal world, advance their careers, and work together to re-envision journalism. According to co-founder Gloria Feldt, Take the Lead’s goal is “nothing less than gender parity by 2025.”

Women are leading efforts to combat hate in America and build bridges across our divides.

Like many who care about the health of our political system, we at Democracy Fund have been alarmed by increasing tribalism and extremism across the United States, including the implementation of policies targeting immigrant and minority communities and the rise in hate-crimes against communities of color, and Jewish, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities. We’re partnering with leaders and organizations that are working to ensure the resilience and safety of targeted communities through our Special Project on Fostering a Just and Inclusive Society.

Grantees like Sherrilyn Ifill at the NAACP-LDF, Kristen Clarke at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, Marielena Hincapie at the National Immigration Law Center, and Aarti Kohli at the Asian Law Caucus are leading efforts to protect those whose civil rights and safety are endangered in this volatile political moment. Purvi Shah and Movement Law Lab are incubating projects that combine law and community organizing to protect, defend, and strengthen racial justice movements. To inform national conversations, Meira Neggaz and Dahlia Mogahed at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding provide case studies and data on the day-to-day challenges many Muslims face, as well as actionable recommendations for breaking the structural barriers that hinder the American Muslim community from full inclusion and participation. And Samar Ali is leading the Millions of Conversations campaign to engage communities across the country in changing the narrative about Muslims in America.

In this blog, we could only highlight a few of the remarkable women leaders whose whose organizations, programs, and projects Democracy Fund is proud to support. We hope you’ll take some time to explore the complete list below. By working to improve our elections, hold our government accountable, combat hate, and open doors for the next generation, these women are making their mark on American history right now—and our democracy will be stronger because of them.

ELECTIONS

Bonnie Allen, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee

Pam Anderson, Consultant for Voter Centric Election Administration

Michelle Bishop, National Disability Rights Network

Mitchell Brown, Capacity and Governance Institute

Jamie Chesser, National States Geographic Information Council

Dana Chisnell, Center for Civic Design

Kristen Clarke, Lawyers Committee for Civil RIghts

Lisa Danetz, National Voter Registration Act Compliance Consultant

Mari Dugas, Belfer Center Cybersecurity and Defending Digital Democracy

Tiana Epps Johnson, Center for Technology and Civic Life

Rebecca Green, William & Mary Law School eBenchbook

Astrid Garcia Ochoa, Future of California Elections

Kathleen Hale, Capacity and Governance Institute

Karen Hobert Flynn, Common Cause

Shanna Hughey, ThinkTennessee

Sharon Jarvis, Moody College of Communications, University of Texas

Virginia Kase, League of Women Voters

Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, CIRCLE at Tufts University

Kate Krontiris, Voter Turnout consultant

Nsombi Lambright, One Voice

Susan Lerner, Common Cause New York

Amber McReynolds, Vote at Home

Gretchen Macht, RI VOTES at University of Rhode Island

Mimi Marziani, Texas Civil Rights Project

Terry Ao Minnis, Asian Americans for Advancing Justice

Mindy Moretti, Electionline

Jennifer Morrell, Risk-Limiting Audits consultant

Katy Owens Hubler, Common Data and Elections Process Model consultant

Katy Peters, Democracy Works

Wendy Quesenbery, Center for Civic Design

Ashley Spillane, Impactual

Wendy Underhill, National Conference of State Legislatures

GOVERNANCE

Erica Bernal, NALEO Educational Fund

Danielle Brian, Project On Government Oversight

Louise Dube, iCivics

Mindy Finn, Empowered Women

Sylvia Golbin Goodman, Andrew Goodman Foundation

Rosalind Gold, NALEO Educational Fund

Dr. Mary Grant, Edward M. Kennedy Institute

Cindy Hall, Women’s Congressional Policy Institute

Cherie Harder, Trinity Forum

Marci Harris, PopVox

Dr. Carla Hayden, Library of Congress

Audrey Henson, College to Congress

Lorelei Kelly, Beeck Center

Sheila Krumholz, Center for Responsive Politics

Frances Lee, UMD Interdisciplinary Polarization Research

Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer, National Institute for Civil Discourse

Tamera Luzzatto, Pew Safe Spaces Project

Maya MacGuineas, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

Angela Manso, Staff Up Congress, NALEO Educational Fund

Meredith McGehee, Issue One

Darla Minnich, National Issues Forum Institute

Joan Mooney, Faith and Politics Institute

Jennifer Nassour, ReflectUS

Beth Simone Noveck, NYU GovLab

Michelle Payne, Congressional Sports for Charity

Rachel Peric, Welcoming America

Lisa Rosenberg, Open the Government

Laura Rosenberger, Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund

Sonal Shah, Beeck Center

Suzanne Spaulding, Defending Democracy Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Michele Stockwell, Bipartisan Policy Center Action

Jody Thomas, National Foundation for Women Legislators

Sarah Turberville, The Constitution Project at POGO

PUBLIC SQUARE

Sarah Alvarez, Outlier Media

Bettina Chang, City Bureau

Heather Chaplin, The New School for Journalism + Design

Meredith Clark, University of Virginia/ASNE Diversity Survey

Sue Cross, Institute for Nonprofit News

Gloria Feldt, Take the Lead

Leslie Fields-Cruz, Black Public Media

Angela Ford, The Obsidian Collection

Martha Foye, Working Narratives

Lackisha Freeman, WNCU

Sarah Gustavus, New Mexico Local News Fund

Elizabeth Green, Chalkbeat, American Journalism Project

Andrea Hart, City Bureau

Hadar Harris, Student Press Law Center

Rose Hoban, NC Health News

Deborah Holt Noel, UNC-TV Black Issues Forum

Janey Hurley, Asheville Writers in the Schools

Paola Jaramillo, Enlace Latino North Carolina

Nikole Hannah Jones, The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting

Mollie Kabler, Coast Alaska

Regina Lawrence, Agora Journalism Center

Sally Lehrman, Trust Project

Joy Mayer, Trusting News Project

Stefanie Murray, Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University

Tamiko Ambrose Murray, Asheville Writers in the Schools

Amy Niles, WBGO

Angie Newsome, Carolina Public Press

Suzanne Nossel, Pen America

Erika Owens, OpenNews

Tracie Powell, Democracy Fund Senior Fellow

Angelique Powers, Field Foundation

Kristy Roschke, News Co/Lab at Arizona State University

Melanie Sill, Senior Consultant for North Carolina Local News Lab

Sheila Solomon, Senior Consultant for Chicago

Michelle Srbinovich, WDET

Talia Stroud, Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin

Katie Townsend, Reporters Committee for Press Freedom Litigation Program

Naomi Tacuyan Underwood, Asian American Journalists Association

Mary Walter Brown, News Revenue Hub

Nancy Watzman, Colorado Media Project

Journalism and Women Symposium

JUST & INCLUSIVE SOCIETY

Samar Ali, Millions of Conversations

Rachel Brown, Over Zero

Kristen Clarke, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights

Marielena Hincapie, National Immigration Law Center

Sherrilyn Ifill, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Aarti Kohli, Asian Law Caucus

Dalia Mogahed, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding

Meira Neggaz, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding

Catherine Orsborn, Shoulder to Shoulder

Purvi Shah, Movement Law Lab

Shireen Zaman, Rise Together Fund (formerly Security and Rights Collaborative)

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

Shari Davis, Participatory Budgeting Project

Rachel Kleinfeld, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Melissa Rodgers, Immigrant Legal Resource Center

Prof. Susan Stokes – Bright Lines Watch, University of Chicago

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A Special Project to Defend America’s Fourth Estate

Josh Stearns

April 24, 2018

Journalism plays many roles in our democracy. At its best, it informs people about critical issues in ways that builds agency; it reflects the diverse lives of our nation back to us in ways that strengthen communities; it provides a public square where ideas can be debated; and it interrogates systems and institutions in ways that hold power to account.

Since Democracy Fund was founded, we have been investing in people and organizations who are working to strengthen journalism and local news to ensure a brighter future for our democracy. We are helping rebuild local news business models, fostering bold new collaborations, and reimagining the social contract between newsrooms and communities.

That long-haul work continues, but one year ago Democracy Fund announced a new effort focused specifically on bolstering and defending journalism’s ability to serve as a robust fourth estate. Alarmed by the escalating political attacks against journalists and concerned about what those threats meant for the public’s access to information, we made the largest grants in our organization’s history.

Defending America’s Fourth Estate

In March 2017, along with our colleagues at First Look Media, we committed $10 million over two-years to the Center for Investigative Reporting, Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, and ProPublica. Recognizing the essential role of local and state investigative journalism we also contributed $1 million to NewsMatch, which helped 109 nonprofit newsrooms raise nearly $5 million in the last few months of 2017 (read more about the results of NewsMatch here). Together these grants make up our special project on investigative reporting, which seeks to ensure nonprofit newsrooms are prepared to face new and mounting challenges.

The last year has been a profound reminder of the critical role of a bold, trustworthy, and free press. Our grantees have produced hard hitting public interest reporting on the financial conflicts of interest in the current administration, social media’s impact on democracy, the rise of hate crimes, as well as on the upheavals and changes shaping education, environmental issues, and immigration.

Every single one of our grantees had at least one story that revealed conflicts of interest or wrongdoing that resulted in meaningful policy change, divestments and resignations.
ProPublica’s reporting on social media platforms and algorithms sparked Facebook to change its advertising policy and spurred NYC to pass the country’s first bill to address algorithmic discrimination in city government.
The Center for Investigative Reporting and Center for Public Integrity launched a “Citizen Sleuths” program to engage thousands of people in digging into the financial disclosure records for more than 400 appointees.
The Center for Public Integrity compiled state disclosure reports into a searchable library, revealing how state lawmakers use their position to enrich themselves.

These are just a few of the headlines from the past year. Our grantees also produced life-saving reporting on maternal health, revelations about housing discrimination, and an Oscar nominated film on the opioid crisis that was picked up by Netflix.

Accountability Reporting and Being Accountable Ourselves

All of these investments were general operating grants, which means there were no strings attached to how the grants had to be used. Grantees had total freedom to use the funds as they saw fit for the unique needs of their organizations, communities, and beats. In addition, Democracy Fund has an editorial policy written into our grant agreements that mandates we cannot speak to our grantees about content decisions. We believe this kind of independence is critical, especially with grants of this size.

In the end, the freedom these grants provided didn’t just produce more journalism, but also created opportunities to rethink and reimagine how that journalism was done. In an era of dwindling trust for journalism, integrity has to be at the heart of newsrooms and foundations. Each of these newsrooms have opened up their process to their readers, engaging people in the reporting process, and bringing profound transparency to their process.

The Center for Investigative Reporting held community forums and opened up a text message line to answer questions from communities across the country about their investigation into modern day redlining. ProPublica built a crowdsourcing app called the Facebook Political Ad Collector which collects ads on Facebook to enable ProPublica to better monitor political ads on social platforms. The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University paired journalism students with NPR and Frontline journalists to investigate the housing crisis.

These are not just clever innovations, but critical interventions that put the public at the heart of investigative journalism. The ability of the press to serve as a check and balance on power is rooted in the legitimacy and trust bestowed upon it by the public. As such, to hold our leaders accountable, we need to hold our communities close and be accountable ourselves.

We look forward to continuing to share, and to be accountable, as this special project continues.

Grantees of the Investigative Journalism Project include the following:

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NYU and De Correspondent Launch New Laboratory for Community Supported Investigative News

Josh Stearns

March 28, 2017

Rebuilding trust in journalism means rethinking the relationship between readers, revenue and reporting. That idea is at the heart of a new project launching today.

The Membership Puzzle Project, a collaboration between New York University and Dutch news site De Correspondent, will create a laboratory to study ways community engagement can strengthen investigative reporting and make journalism more sustainable. With $515,000 in funding from Democracy Fund, First Look Media and Knight Foundation, the Membership Puzzle Project will tackle specific problems and develop scalable solutions for developing strong membership programs, and share those lessons throughout the United States’ journalism landscape.

De Correspondent launched in the Netherlands with one of the largest crowdfunding campaigns in journalism and now has over 50,000 members paying $63 a year, with an 80 percent renewal rate. Their reader-funded $3.2 million budget supports 20 full time “correspondents” who work closely with their communities to report on issues of critical public interest. De Correspondent operates in the open, sharing their budget and decision-making transparently and building deep and diverse relationships with its community in ways that strengthen the reporting and the sustainability of the newsroom.

De Correspondent announced its expansion to the U.S. market today.

The site will be incubated at New York University for the first year, where professor Jay Rosen will help translate their model to the United States and convene leading thinkers and innovators from across U.S. to exchange ideas, spread best practices, and train people on both sides of the project. This two-way laboratory will serve as a catalyst for creating new ways of supporting and strengthening the Fourth Estate.

This project is part of more than $12 million in new grants dedicated to supporting a robust and free press announced by the Democracy Fund and our partners at First Look Media earlier this week. Other grants include $3 million each to the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, and ProPublica, $800,000 to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and $500,000 to the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. In addition, Democracy Fund announced a $1 million commitment to a new fund to invest in state and local investigative reporting.

A healthy democracy requires a free and robust press that responds to the needs of its communities and holds power to account. The critical role of the press in American democracy, as expressed in the First Amendment, is rooted in the information needs of communities which seek to be self-governing. At a time when the press is under attack and traditional business models continue to erode, the public becomes all the more central to securing and supporting the critical democratic function of journalism.

Democracy Fund’s investment in this project builds on more than $18 million in earlier grants which have focused on supporting a vibrant public square in America. We are particularly excited for how this project can dovetail with the work of the recently launched News Revenue Hub which is providing shared membership administration and strategy for small local newsrooms and topical reporting sites around the country. That work is already seeing profoundly exciting results and they will be core partners in the work with New York University and De Correspondent.

For Jay Rosen, one of the pioneers of civic journalism in the 1990s, this project is the culmination of years of work focused on putting people at the center of journalism. Ten years after Rosen dubbed the term “the people formerly known as the audience” this project asks, what is the social contract between journalists and the public that we need today? De Correspondent provides one answer to that question.

De Correspondent has shown that when newsrooms embrace the public as core to their work they can navigate through the stormy waters we are currently facing. Together we believe this project can help more newsrooms chart a path towards a robust future.

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Guest Post: New API Research shows Growth of Fact Checking and Partisan Challenges

Jane Elizabeth

April 22, 2015

This is cross-posted from the American Press Institute. View a full version with charts here and read more about the Democracy Fund’s support of fact checking here.

The amount of fact-checking journalism produced in the United States is increasing dramatically, and while there are limits to its persuasiveness, it is a measurably effective tool for correcting political misinformation among voters, according to new scholarly research conducted for the American Press Institute and released today.

The number of fact-check stories in the U.S. news media increased by more than 300 percent from 2008 to 2012, one of the studies found. That accelerates the growth in fact-checking journalism found in the prior national election cycle.

Fact-checking journalism also succeeds in increasing voter knowledge, according to controlled experiments with audiences.

“Fact-checking journalism is growing rapidly but is still relatively rare and heavily concentrated among outlets with dedicated fact checkers,” said the University of Exeter’s Jason Reifler, one of the scholars engaged in the research.

The three studies released today, conducted by scholars at six universities, build on existing research and constitute the most comprehensive effort to date examining the work of journalists to police political rhetoric.

Among some of the other findings:

More than eight in 10 Americans have a favorable view of political fact-checking.
Fact-checking is equally persuasive whether or not it uses a “rating scale” to summarize its findings.
Fact-checks of inaccurate statements are more persuasive when the consumer and the politician belong to the same political party.
Democrats, in general, have a more favorable view of and are somewhat more persuaded by fact-checking journalism than Republicans.

The results released today are part of a series commissioned through API’s Fact-Checking Project, an initiative to examine and improve fact-checking in journalism. The program is funded by the Democracy Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Rita Allen Foundation.

The Growth of Fact-Checking

By several measures fact-checking is growing. In the study of the frequency of fact-checking — either original fact-checks or stories about such work — the number of fact-checking stories increased by more than 50 percent from 2004 to 2008 and by more than 300 percent from 2008 to 2012. The growth occurred mostly at 11 newspapers that partnered with PolitiFact, one of the country’s most prominent fact-checking organizations, but the number of such stories also more than doubled between 2008 and 2012 at media outlets unaffiliated with PolitiFact.

The findings on the growth in fact-checking are reinforced by the Reporters’ Lab at Duke University, which found that the number of fully active fact-checking organizations in North America increased from 15 in April 2014 to 22 in January 2015.

The API study, authored by Lucas Graves at the University of Wisconsin, Brendan Nyhan at Dartmouth College and Reifler, also explored what conditions encourage more fact-checking journalism to occur. The researchers found that reporters who are reminded of fact-checking’s journalistic value produce significantly more fact-checking stories than those who are not reminded. Yet, the study found, reminding reporters that readers like fact-checking did not have a statistically significant effect.

Fact-checking and consumer knowledge

A second study, also by Nyhan and Reifler, found that more than eight in 10 Americans have a favorable view of political fact-checking journalism.

But there are some partisan differences in public perceptions of the practice: Republicans don’t view fact-checking journalism as favorably as Democrats do, especially among people with high levels of political knowledge.

Americans also appear to learn from fact-checks written by journalists, the study found. Knowledge of relevant facts increased by 11 percentage points among people who were randomly exposed to a series of fact-checks during the 2014 election, compared to a control group. In general, the study found, fact-checks are more effective among people who already have higher levels of political knowledge.

The study is the first randomized controlled trial estimating the effects of exposure to fact checking over time.

‘Pants on Fire’ Optional

Another of the studies examined the effectiveness of “rating scales” in fact-checking journalism. This research, conducted by Michelle A. Amazeen of Rider University, with Graves, Emily Thorson of George Washington University, and Ashley Muddiman of the University of Wyoming, found that a fact check is an effective tool for correcting political misinformation, whether or not it employs a “rating scale.” When given a choice, however, readers selected a fact check with a rating scale.

Such ratings are used by fact-checking organizations such the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, which uses a Pinocchio scale, and PolitiFact, whose Truth-O-Meter includes the well-known “Pants on Fire” rating.

Fact-checks of inaccurate statements are less persuasive when the reader and politician belongs to opposite political parties, the researchers found. These readers tend to think the opposing party politician’s statement was false, even before they read the correction. For this reason, political fact-checking may be of particular benefit during primary contests, according to the authors, although fact-checking currently is more likely to occur during general election cycles than in primaries.

The study also found that a non-political correction — in this case, regarding a statement made by a breakfast cereal company official — was more effective when a rating scale was added to the text.

The Future of Fact-Checking

Overall the studies suggest that fact-checking is achieving its core aim: countering the spread of political misinformation. And the public largely appreciates this work.

“The results suggest that corrections of misinformation do help people to more accurately understand the world around them,” Amazeen said.

Reifler added, “In short, people like fact-checking and it appears to help them become better informed.”

Read the full studies here:

The Growth of Fact Checking

Estimating Fact-Checking’s Effects

The Effectiveness of Rating Scales

In the coming weeks, API will publish more findings from its fact-checking research, including the prevalence of misinformation on Twitter and a report by journalist Mark Stencel examining the impact of fact-checking on the behavior of those in the political arena.