ST.PETERSBURG, Fla. (March 12, 2024) – The International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter recently announced that 20 projects from around the world have won major grants from the IFCN’s Global Fact Check Fund. The winners will split $2 million, funded by Google/YouTube, for grants of $100,000 each.
The winning projects will develop technology to explore the role of generative artificial intelligence; automated archiving; or eye-tracking studies to enhance fact-checking work. Several projects will focus on outreach to young people or seniors through media literacy, short videos or fact-checking training. A number of projects look to reach people living in “news deserts,” where information sources are few. Several projects seek to reach wide audiences and improve their resiliency against manipulated information.
Winners were selected from more than 200 applications received by the IFCN and analyzed by independent reviewers. Each application was first screened by IFCN’s staff for general eligibility — 103 were ruled eligible — and then each was graded by two independent reviewers. Awards of $100,000 each were made to 20 projects from countries such as India, the United States, Spain, Colombia, Mongolia, Italy, France, Nigeria, Poland, Brazil and Turkey.
IFCN Director Angie Drobnic Holan said the wide array of high-quality proposals submitted made the final selection process very challenging.
“We looked for projects that were major expansions of existing work; that could have real-world impact, especially in countries with upcoming elections; and that had strong monitoring and evaluation components so that other fact-checkers could potentially replicate their ideas,” she said.
She also expressed gratitude to the reviewers, drawn from the fact-checking community and academia, for their willingness to review applications. Each project was scored twice according to a detailed rubric that included ratings for the statement of need; organizational capacity; action plans and timelines; monitoring and evaluation; and likelihood of success.
She also thanked Google/YouTube for supporting the program, launched in April 2023, during a time when fact-checking organizations are actively seeking new ideas to support a healthy informational ecosystem on the internet.
The grant winners are spread across five continents — Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America.
They have 12 months to implement and complete their projects and are expected to submit progress reports at the halfway point and at the end of the 12-month period.
Read below about each grant winner and their projects.
Projects using innovative technology
Chequeado – Argentina
Project: Innovating Fact-Checking for Impactful Community Engagement
Chequeado will establish an Innovation Lab focused on generative AI, aiming to empower fact-checkers and content creators with tools that transcend traditional limitations. This initiative will focus on the development of an autonomous conversational chatbot, leveraging advanced natural language processing and machine learning for real-time fact-checking and information verification.
Fake News Tragač – Serbia
Project: AudienceConnect
Fake News Tragač in Serbia will employ eye-tracking technology to gain new insights into how audiences respond to fact checks. It will use that research to focus on new efforts to increase audience engagement through various communication strategies, content tailoring and website and social media optimization. It will share its learnings with the wider community.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) – France and worldwide
Project: DisinfoArchiving
The DisinfoArchive project from AFP is aimed at archiving online messaging so that fact-checkers can more easily prove when information is manipulated. The project team includes AFP, maker of the InVID-WeVerify verification plugin; Deutsche Press Agentur (dpa), the German news agency with expertise in archiving disinformation; the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine); and Harvard University’s Library Innovation Lab, with expertise in archive captures. The partners will design and implement an archiving workflow via APIs and automatically display the results on the Internet Archive for the benefit of the public and the fact-checking community.
Projects promoting wider information resiliency
Science Feedback – France, United Kingdom, Canada, United States
Project: Communicate & Learn: Empowering Science Feedback for Wider Impact (CLESWI)
Science Feedback will focus its project on more widely disseminating fact-checking content in order to increase public resilience to misinformation. A special emphasis will be placed on broadening the audience for data analyses and prebunking articles via different channels, including social media platforms, with partnerships with influencers strategically fostered to amplify coverage. It also aims to distill technical material into more accessible content, including graphics, videos and simplified text.
Maldita – Spain
Project: Promoting the reach of fact-checked information in Spain through innovative collaboration with media outlets
Maldita’s project aims to reposition Maldita.es as a fact-checking agency within the Spanish-speaking information ecosystem, providing verified information to other media outlets for broader dissemination. Through the establishment of a web platform and customized outreach campaigns, the project seeks to increase the presence of Maldita content in local and regional media outlets, fostering a more diverse audience reach. To measure impact, the project will utilize media hit tracking software and conduct user surveys for further improvement, ultimately enhancing citizen access to verified information and supporting fact-checking efforts in local media.
Faktograf – Croatia
Project: Rediscovering Audiences through Political Fact-Checking
Faktograf’s project aims to enhance citizens’ resilience to political manipulations and disinformation campaigns while emphasizing the significance of fact-checking in a democracy. It will employ data-driven planning informed by metrics from its own social media and website, in order to enhance audience development and multimedia content creation. Additionally, a Fact-Checking Media Literacy Campaign will be launched to educate citizens on the importance of fact-checking, particularly pertinent with upcoming national and EU parliamentary elections in Croatia in 2024.
Facta and Pagella Politica – Italy
Project: MediaMentor
Italian audiences, while aware of misinformation, lack the skills to identify and counter it. Media Mentor will develop three curricula addressing three different target groups (such as journalists, youth, parents or seniors). Each curriculum will consist of 10 multimedia modules with at least one video training and related textual explainers and/or activities and be complemented by marketing campaigns to reach desired audiences.
FactCheck.org – United States
Project: Increasing Audience Engagement
Factcheck.org’s project will document the means of achieving a larger and more robust social media presence and a staff better equipped to create social media content. For more than 20 years, FactCheck.org has produced quality, in-depth content, while falling short of goals to reach new audiences. This project will establish a new social media strategy that focuses on social media content production and training staff to create content and launch new social media accounts. Its project will also examine how to promote news content on platforms where it has been deprioritized.
Mongolian Fact-checking Center (MCC) – Mongolia
Project: Amplifying and sustaining fact-checks through meaningful community engagement
Mongolian Fact-Checking Center’s proposal aims to increase overall community engagement. Its plan takes a three-pronged approach: It will increase high-impact, high-quality video content as part of its reporting; it will expand its online training through a massive open online course (MOOC) for the general public; and it will launch a membership program to facilitate participation in the training and in other formal events.
Local news projects and for communities with few news sources (‘news deserts’)
Demagog – Poland
Project: Building a Local Fact-Checking Community
Demagog Association aims to fill the gap in local fact-checking within Polish media, especially crucial ahead of upcoming elections. It plans to establish partnerships with local media outlets, conduct advanced training for local fact-checkers, and conduct a comprehensive survey to identify specific needs, focusing on collaboration models and content strategies. Additionally, the project will enhance its website to aggregate region-specific content, allowing voters to submit content for fact-checking and serving as a promotional hub for curated fact-checks.
Redes Cordiais and Lupa – Brazil
Project: I inform!
Through the “I Inform!” project, Redes Cordiais will launch an innovative initiative to empower local digital influencers and community radios in Brazilian regions facing high news deserts. Through training and support in producing verified content, “I Inform!” expands vulnerable audiences’ access to quality information while empowering new influential figures in spaces where legacy media doesn’t reach. The project’s focus is specifically directed towards the Brazilian municipal elections in 2024.
Wisconsin Watch – United States
Project: Engage Wisconsin
In Wisconsin, a battleground state in the United States presidential elections, disinformation campaign funding is flowing into the state. Wisconsin Watch’s project will target news deserts, including in rural areas with low broadband access, to provide nonpartisan, evidence-based journalism. Additionally, it will produce Spanish-language content to reach Hispanic and Latino audiences; and fact-checks for TikTok, YouTube and Instagram to reach younger audiences with fact-checks.
Projects for youth and seniors
HKBU Fact Check – HongKong
Project: Information Literacy Exhibition and Fact-checking Workshops for Students
HKBU Fact Check will prepare a public information literacy exhibition that features student-directed fact-checking workshops. This public campaign will promote exposure to the practice of fact-checking, with the overarching goal of enhancing student literacy in navigating both news media and social platforms.
FactCheckAfrica – Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast
Project: FactCheckElections
FactCheckElections from FactCheckAfrica will equip young Nigerians with tools to navigate the online landscape and combat the dissemination of fake news and misinformation ahead of elections. The project will work to enhance media literacy and fact-checking skills among young people through targeted training programs in two Nigerian universities, expanding the FactChecking Ambassadors network and empowering youth to navigate the digital landscape safely and effectively discern misinformation. This project was endorsed by IFCN signatory Dubawa
Doğruluk Payı – Turkey
Project Truth Navigators: Empowering Young Fact-Checkers
Truth Navigators will launch a social media campaign tailored to the digital habits of young people (ages 18-25), aiming to transform how they interact with information in the digital age. This campaign will feature visually engaging content and interactive elements, making the process of discerning misinformation and fact-checking more relatable and accessible. The project will also launch two-day, fact-checking training camps in four major Turkish cities to develop a robust community of young, informed and astute new fact-checkers.
Fact Crescendo – India, Sri Lanka
Project: Gen-Z-focused fact-checking video for Instagram, YouTube and TikTok
Fact Crescendo aims to promote media literacy among younger demographics in India and Sri Lanka, by bolstering organizational capacity for video. This initiative will facilitate the rapid production of high-quality fact-checking content in Hindi, English, Sinhala, and Tamil, catering to diverse linguistic audiences. The project will focus on a short-form video series with a goal to reach 1 million followers and views across various social media platforms.
Liputan6.com – Indonesia
Project: Anti-Hoax Zeneration Project
Liputan6.com’s Anti-Hoax Generation Project will increase the production of fact-check content in the form of short videos that are snackable and easy for the public to digest. Additionally, it will conduct an “offline roadshow” to conduct mobile journalism (mojo) training for students, emphasizing the creation of concise fact-check videos suitable for digital platforms and techniques to pre-emptively refute or expose false narratives.
Colombiacheck – Colombia
Project: El Gato Chequeador (The Cat-Checker)
Colombiacheck in Colombia is activating El Gato Chequeador (The Cat-Checker) to deliver an interactive El Gato ChequeBot (The Cat-Checker Bot) via WhatsApp. El Gato Chequeador will also elevate a brand awareness strategy, targeting young students in colleges or universities and teenagers in schools, to include augmented reality pedagogical experiences and media literacy based on the same pet character.
ByteWise – India
News, Ethics, and AI in schools
Bytewise will scale up a previous program in school engagement to reach all 110 Delhi public schools and engage with the education departments of two north Indian States, Haryana and Rajasthan. By deepening and expanding the training curriculum from previous work, Byte will reach 150 schools and more than 60,000 high school students. This project was endorsed by IFCN signatory Factly.
Newschecker – India
Project: Empowering senior citizens to combat misinformation and be digitally sufficient
Newschecker’s project will seek to empower senior citizens to combat misinformation and be digitally sufficient. Seniors have unique challenges in navigating the digital landscape and discerning credible information, and by 2031, India will have 194 million people older than 60. Newschecker intends to build a community of “cyber-seniors,” helping seniors to become knowledge ambassadors. Community efforts will be focussed on YouTube, WhatsApp and the Newschecker website. It will include a senior-friendly curriculum and online and offline training.
Media Contact:
Angie Drobnic Holan
Director, International Fact-Checking Network
aholan@poynter.org
+1-727-410-1770
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About the International Fact-Checking Network
The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter was launched in 2015 to bring together the growing community of fact-checkers around the world and advocates of factual information in the global fight against misinformation. We enable fact-checkers through networking, capacity building and collaboration. IFCN promotes the excellence of fact-checking to more than 100 organizations worldwide through advocacy, training and global events. Our team monitors trends in the fact-checking field to offer resources to fact-checkers, contribute to public discourse and provide support for new projects and initiatives that advance accountability in journalism. We believe truth and transparency can help people be better informed and equipped to navigate harmful misinformation.
