Why do journalists fact-check? The role of demand- and supply-side factors Lucas Graves Brendan Nyhan University of Wisconsin Dartmouth College
[email protected] [email protected] Jason Reifler University of Exeter j.reifl
[email protected] January 14, 2016 Abstract Why has fact-checking spread so quickly within U.S. political journalism? The practice does not appear to diffuse organically at a state or regional level — PolitiFact affiliates had no effect on fact-checking coverage by other news- papers in their states during 2012. However, results from a field experiment in 2014 show that messages promoting the high status and journalistic values of fact-checking increased the prevalence of fact-checking coverage, while messages about audience demand were somewhat less successful. These findings suggest that the spread of fact-checking is driven primarily by pro- fessional motives within journalism. We thank Democracy Fund and the American Press Institute for generous funding support. We also thank Kevin Arceneaux, Toby Bolsen, Andrew Hall, Shawnika Hull, Joshua Kertzer, Jacob Mont- gomery, Costas Panagopoulos, Ethan Porter, Hernando Rojas, Edward Walker, and participants in the Experimental Studies of Elite Behavior conference at Yale University for helpful comments. We are indebted to Alex Carr, Megan Chua, Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen, Sasha Dudding, Lily Gordon, Claire Groden, Miranda Houchins, Thomas Jaime, Susanna Kalaris, Lindsay Keare, Taylor Malmsheimer, Lauren Martin, Megan Ong, Ramtin Rahmani, Rebecca Rodriguez, Mark Sheridan, Marina Shkura- tov, Caroline Sohr, Heather Szilagyi, Mackinley Tan, Mariel Wallace, and Marissa Wizig for excel- lent research assistance. The conclusions and any errors are, of course, our own.