Fact-checking in the Spanish media: Routines, Sources, Tools, and Level of Training of Journalists

Abstract

Fact checking is becoming an essential journalistic task because of the proliferation of misinformative content disseminated massively through social media and other channels. Based on this observation, the fundamental objective of the research that serves as the basis for this paper was to learn about the Spanish journalists’ professional routines and training in fact-checking. The authors developed a 29-item questionnaire distributed via email to journalists nationwide between May and June 2023 to collect the information. We obtained 326 responses, resulting in several findings: a) the implementation of data verification is not uniform, being more frequent in some types of media —newspapers and verification platforms— and in large corporations; b) workload is an obstacle that prevents most journalists from devoting as much time to verification as it would require; c) some areas generate more problems when it comes to cross-checking data —such as politics and economics—; d) the preferred sources for verification are academic and official sources —governments, state security forces–; e) the digital tools that are known or used by professionals still have low penetration rates, with only some exceptions; f) although the perception of the respondents is that they are sufficiently trained for verification work, only a minority have received specific training in this area.