FactCheck.org has launched a partnership with Hearst Television Inc., which will feature fact-checks, interviews with fact-checkers, and other ways of incorporating FactCheck.org’s work on Hearst’s television and radio stations and websites through the 2020 campaign cycle.
“We welcome the opportunity to work this campaign season with Hearst Television,” said Eugene Kiely, the director of FactCheck.org, which is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. “Hearst reaches audiences in 39 states, which means we will have the ability to expand our reach across the country and potentially reach millions of new readers.”
Hearst Television owns and operates 33 television and two radio stations serving 26 media markets, reaching over 21 million U.S. television households. Hearst recently announced its new collaboration with FactCheck.org “as part of Hearst Television’s effort to identify misinformation and to ensure news consumers get the facts.”
In 2019 Hearst Television received its 10th consecutive Walter Cronkite Award for excellence in television journalism as a local station group. Hearst was praised for its “wide coverage of issues” and “reliable presence on the campaign trail.” The Cronkite Awards are announced by the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, which partners with APPC for one of the awards, the Brooks Jackson Prize for Fact-Checking Political Messages.
FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters, aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. Founded in 2003 by APPC Director Kathleen Hall Jamieson and journalist Brooks Jackson, FactCheck.org last year marked 15 years of “holding politicians accountable.”
In addition to this new collaboration with Hearst TV, FactCheck.org has an ongoing partnership with CNN’s “State of the Union,” which produces weekly online fact-checking videos hosted by anchor Jake Tapper. FactCheck.org also is one of the outside, third-party fact-checking organizations that are working with Facebook to debunk misinformation that is spreading virally across social media.
As part of the FactCheck.org and Hearst TV partnership, Hearst station WJCL 22, an ABC affiliate in Savannah, Ga., featured interviews with FactCheck.org Managing Editor Lori Robertson:
Fact Check: President Trump’s remarks on impeachment inquiry
