Communities of practice in the production and resourcing of fact-checking

Abstract

This article considers the ways in which national and international institutional alliances and professional organizations form the basis of a collaborative approach to the resourcing, production, and distribution of fact-checks through a case study of CoronaCheck, the COVID-19 fact-checking project of Australia’s RMIT ABC Fact Check. In doing so, it builds on a theorization that conceives of journalism as a “community of practice.” Two themes emerge from attention to the conceptual framework, content analysis of CoronaCheck newsletters and interviews with fact-checkers and journalists. The first relates to the nexus between fact-checking communities of practice and the productive and collaborative networks that underpin their operation. The second builds on this to consider the structures, resources, and approaches that facilitate experimentation within the community. Taken together, the findings suggest that understanding the practices of international and inter-institutional collaboration in fact-checking efforts such as CoronaCheck is key to shedding light on how a subcommunity of journalism practice broadens its remit and reorients the concerns of the domain in response to change.

Ceding ground as a strategic concession in fact-checking: Shifting practice to shift power

“…The theoretically-focused analysis undertaken in this article draws on the insights of previous empirical work (Brookes and Waller in press) undertaken as part of a broader project, in which research interviews were conducted with fact-checkers and misinformation reporters associated with RAFC’s fact-checking experiment CoronaCheck . These interviews were conducted, and interpreted, alongside an analysis of its content from March to September 2020, and demonstrated the range of evolutions and accommodations made by fact-checkers in their attempts to tackle the COVID-19 infodemic.…”

“…Scholarly attention to Australian fact-checking sought to map the field (Brookes 2018a) and understand the relationship between fact-checkers and journalism (Brookes 2018b). The Checking the Facts report (Brookes 2020) considered Australian fact-checkers in a global context, the range of challenges they faced, and recommended partnerships between fact-checkers, news organisations and academic institutions 1 . More recently, Australian fact-checking research is embracing diverse approaches and perspectives.…”

“…The qualitative analysis identified four adjacent themes, including misinformation. For the second dataset, a purposive sample of eight interview participants was recruited, in line with the project’s approved scholarly research ethics through (Brookes and Waller in press). They were invited because they were directly involved in producing CoronaCheck , or were identified by other participants as an actor with some involvement in, or detailed knowledge of the project.…”

“…The introduction of the CoronaCheck newsletter represents a new direction in practice that enabled RAFC to respond to the pandemic in a timely manner. At a more precise level, our initial examination of its first six months revealed a range of adaptations in fact-checking practice made possible by interfacing with other actors within its community of practice (Brookes and Waller, in press). RAFC interviewees spoke about these experiments in detail, explaining why it was necessary to revise their fact-checking methodologies for the project, and how collaboration with other media organisations informed the new approaches.…”

“…RAFC’s increased dependence on international and domestic collaborations underpinned five areas of experimentation related to the funding, staffing, style, content and delivery of CoronaCheck, making clear the extent to which the networked approach enabled the development of new practices and knowledge (Brookes and Waller, in press). There is not space here to consider all these changes in RAFC’s practices, so the major concessions of dispensing with a claim and a verdict will be used to explore how RAFC mobilised ‘boundary-drawing power’ to embrace hybridity, master time and thereby extend its remit.…”