A Bit More on Fact-Checking
Last week I spoke with mb instructor Joanna Pearlstein on fact-checking and who can become one. I have a little follow up with more words of wisdom from her colleague, Katherine Wessling, who also teaches a course on the subject, for mb:
Unfortunately, there really doesn’t seem to be any cut-and-dried answer to whether or not most freelancers could find a job fact-checking. It really depends, like so many things, on timing and luck and contacts. If you’re intelligent and you’ve done some sort of reporting in the past (or even some sort of research-some of my best training came from researching my college thesis in history), you can probably pick up the basics of fact-checking rather quickly. When I was hiring fact-checkers, I’d look for people with fact-checking experience first, reporting experience second, and any other sort of research experience third. It’s important to play up any sort of reporting and research experience that you’ve had in your resume and cover letter. Fact-checking does require more expertise than you might think, but not that much more. Also, different publications have different standards and methods. I hope that my class gives people a jump-start on what’s expected of a fact-checker and helps anyone hiring them to know that they’ve had some basic training. But the only way to acquire real experience is to get your foot in the door and get someone to give you your first break. From then on, it should be easier to find more work, and the more work and experience you have under your belt, the more valuable you’ll be as a fact-checker.
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