Help Desk: What are the Facts on Fact Checking?
…and other such questions. I was curious to learn who is qualified to be a fact-checker and what it entails. I asked Joanna Pearlstein, research editor at Wired magazine and mb instructor. She teaches, of course, Fact-Checking 101 on the West Coast, so if you’re interested in learning more, sign up for her course this summer.
Can you apply for a job as a fact-checker if you don’t have experience as one (even though you have experience as a reporter/copy editor)?
Yes. About one-third of the people I’ve hired as fact-checkers didn’t have previous fact-checking experience. What they did have, though, was great reporting skills and excellent attention to detail. Most of the time, they also had specific knowledge of a topic that was helpful to the publication. I’d probably opt to hire candidates with reporting experience over those with copy-editing experience, as I think reporting skills are a bit more applicable.
How do you convince a potential employer that you’d make a good fact-checker even if you’ve never done it before?
Fact-checking is very similar to reporting, only with a different end goal. Both tasks require great problem-solving and research skills. And fact-checking requires intense attention to detail. If I were looking for a fact-checking job, I’d try to convince the employer that I had the reporting skills and that I was detail-oriented.
Knowledge of the magazine’s topic is critical, especially if you don’t have prior fact-checking experience. For example – if you have great reporting skills and have taken lots of advanced cooking classes, perhaps you’d be a good fit for a fact-checking assignment at a food magazine. On the other hand, if you hate sports, don’t even bother applying to a baseball magazine.
Are there ways to practice fact-checking before you start doing it professionally?
Generally, I’d say in-depth reporting and large research projects are good precursors to fact-checking work.
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