EVERYONE HATES THE REFEREE: HOW FACT-CHECKERS MITIGATE A PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF BIAS A project presented to the faculty of the graduate school at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism by ALLISON COLBURN Committee: Katherine Reed (chair) Jennifer Rowe Barbara Cochran December 2017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank Katherine Reed for helping me take my abstract ideas into something concrete and researchable. She was an essential guide when I was struggling to come up with my project proposal. I also want to thank Jennifer Rowe for her encouragement and for turning my “judgements” into “judgments.” And Barbara Cochran has given me a great deal of support during my project’s professional component. I have gained so much from having three intelligent, successful and strong-willed women on my committee. Last, I would be remiss to forget to acknowledge the Missouri School of Journalism. The disillusioned student who started with the school in fall 2015 is a better, more confident version of herself today. ii" TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments.................................................................................................. ii Chapter 1. Introduction..............................................................................................3 2. Activity Log.............................................................................................7 3. Evaluation .............................................................................................17 4. Physical Evidence .................................................................................20 5. Analysis.................................................................................................64 Appendix...............................................................................................................85 1. Note to Reader………………………………………………………...85 2. Literature Review……………………………………………………..86 3. Interview Transcripts……………………………………………...…104 4. Fact-Checking Policies………………………………………………142 iii" Introduction When I was about 7 years old, an adult in my life who I looked up to and admired in many ways, told me that dinosaurs never existed. According to her faith, God would never place such ghastly creatures on Earth. And the Earth was 6,000 years old. And macroevolution was a sham. She wasn’t the only person in my life who rejected certain fields of science. A good portion of my community believed the same. I grew up in Colorado Springs near Focus on the Family, a Christian organization that rejects Darwin’s theory of evolution. The organization has, since its founding in 1977, attracted like-minded individuals and churches to the surrounding area. The problem for second-grade me was that I loved dinosaurs. I also loved reading about the big bang, the life cycle of stars and Earth’s history. When people who I considered to be much wiser than me told me that what I was learning in school was wrong, I had to make a decision: Are dinosaurs fake? Or are adults lying to me? Overwhelming scientific evidence won my vote. But what I learned then about faith, fact and delusion continues to puzzle me. I’ve had countless conversations with people, many of whom I consider to be friends, about why they believe what they do, despite there being no evidence to support it and ample evidence to dispel it. They tell me that aliens visit Earth all of the time, the U.S. government was behind the September 11 attacks and big pharmaceutical companies are withholding the cure for cancer. Their strong-held beliefs always hinge on some core ideology that, if shaken or disturbed, might demolish the person they think they are. Some pundits and scholars argue that we live in a post-truth political era, where appeals to emotion and personal belief are more persuasive than objective facts. Conspiracy theories 3 have made their way from the fringe to the mainstream. This poses a problem for journalists, who must now figure out how to present facts to an increasingly skeptical audience. My project aims to offer a critical look at the fact-checking process along with its framing devices in the hopes of finding best practices for reporting fact-checks. In a way, I’ve always wanted to do this kind of research. The social components of spreading fiction have fascinated me for years. In undergrad, my plan was to complete my bachelor’s degree in English literature and then spend my life conducting research in folklore and oral narratives and teach at a university. This plan came to an end about half-way through my senior year. As I spent more time getting to know university researchers, I realized I was jealous of my friends who were going to work in business, health care and other, more sociable fields. The thought of confining myself to studies in literature sounded peaceful, but lonely. After about eight months of deliberation, I settled on journalism as my next career move. I felt it would be a good way for me to contribute something meaningful. I had relatively little experience in the field before I applied to the Missouri School of Journalism. I was working in retail and wrote for a volunteer-run, small community newspaper outside of Colorado Springs. My first story went on the front page: “Stormwater drainage fee set for ballot,” the headline read. It wasn’t the coolest story, but I felt like I was doing something helpful for my community. Since then, I have gained almost two years of experience working at the Columbia Missourian. During my first and second semester of graduate school, I worked as an education reporter in addition to working general assignment shifts. I became an expert on my beat as I reported on K-12 and higher education, learning the complexities of charter schools, university funding and closing the academic achievement gap. My current position, which I have held for 4 the past year, is an assistant city editor. I spend about 20 hours per week keeping tabs on breaking news and editing general assignment stories. Through these positions I have grown comfortable with pitching stories, working on long-term pieces and handling any daily news that comes in. I’ve also taken important skills classes, including Computer-assisted Reporting, Advanced Data Journalism, Investigative Reporting and Magazine Editing. When I first started my graduate program in the Missouri School of Journalism, I created a few goals: Learn to write feature stories, cover breaking news, develop data skills, work in news editing and report on politics. I’ve spent most of my time focusing on the first four goals, but I’ve only just touched on the last. Even though political reporting intersects with all topics, I haven’t quite had the opportunity to really dig into that essential genre of journalism. By spending the upcoming fall semester reporting in Washington, D.C. and completing my professional project, I hope to finally finish what I set out to do in fall 2015. Lately, my interest in political reporting has centered on fact-checking. As fake news continues to pervade online and the new White House administration writes off fact-checks by claiming the existence of “alternative facts,” sorting out what is true and what is purely made up has become perhaps the most essential public service in journalism. While writing for PolitiFact Missouri in my fact-checking class this spring, I realized I was interested in taking a scholarly approach to the topic. For my project, I chose to work with framing theory because I wanted to understand the different approaches fact-checkers take in trying to correct the record and dispel misleading information. Some organizations use rating systems, some call false claims lies, and some just lay out whatever information they found and allow the reader to make a judgment. After surveying various theories, it became apparent that these organizations’ methods of presenting 5 fact-checks were framing devices. Analyzing fact-checks through the lens of framing theory sets me up to understand how journalists grapple with the era of alternative facts. In my PolitiFact class, I have already learned how to identify verifiable claims, track down the source of information behind a claim and report on its various facets. With the help of editors, I’ve also taken part in deciding how to rate the fact-checks of mine and my peers. I recently accepted a news reporting internship on the metro desk of the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, which will take place from May to August this year. The experience I’ve gained since beginning my graduate program along with the experience I’ll have come August sets me up for success in completing my project and fulfilling my graduate school goals. 6 Activity Log The week of 8/21-8/28 Hello everyone. I don’t have a whole lot to report this week. My first few days in Washington were spent starting my internship at PolitiFact and getting familiar with the city. It was a weird start because I so far haven’t had an in-person editor. The newsroom is kind of split in half. There are a few of us in the D.C. Office, and a few more people work in Florida. Most of our communication so far has been over Slack. On the one hand, it’s nice for reporters and editors to be able to work from home if they want to. But the main challenge I dealt with last week was figuring out what I was doing without the help of a supervisor. I did manage to get a couple of clips published last week, and tomorrow we should be publishing another story. This internship so far has been much different in terms of pace than my breaking news internship this summer at the Post-Dispatch, where I was getting at least one thing published a day. It goes to show how much more time goes into reporting fact-checks and political analysis than into breaking news. Not that breaking news and general assignment reporting is easy, it’s just a quicker process. The added work of having to spell out all of your sources in a citation also slows down the PolitiFact process.