Fact Checking, Facts Count

Facts Protecting Democracy

2026

In the Field, in a Working Democracy, Facts Count and the Rule of Law Remains 'Top of Mind'

Facts and Reasoned Decisions

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/alex-pretti-icu-nurse-minneapolis-shooting/

The Poynter Institute

The Poynter Institute is a global nonprofit that strengthens democracy by improving the relevance, ethical practice and value of journalism.

Poynter's record on 'fact checking' is exemplary and a model that continues to highlight the importance of facts in a 'working democracy'...

From Today's Poynter Report

January 26, 2026

Believe what we tell you, not your own eyes.

Once again, that is what the Trump administration is saying after another protester was shot and killed by federal immigration agents during an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis.

It’s the second time in less than three weeks that federal agents killed a protester in Minneapolis. And for the second time, cellphone videos from bystanders on the scene appear to contradict the federal account of the killing.

On Jan. 7, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother and poet, was shot three times in the face and died as she drove past an ICE agent. The government claimed Good tried to use her car to ram the agent, and that the agent was reacting in self-defense. But videos of that shooting showed Good trying to turn away from the agent and flee the scene.

Then came more horrific events on Saturday.

Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, was shot at least 10 times and died while being pinned to the ground by Border Patrol agents. The Department of Homeland Security said Pretti approached agents with a “9 mm semi-automatic handgun” and was killed after they attempted to disarm him....

How did the news report the shooting of Alex Pretti?

Visit the Poynter Report for more on 'fact checking':

Poynter at GreenPolicy360:

More on Facts, Science, and the "3 Ds -- Discussion, Debate & Decision-Making" at GreenPolicy360:

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2025

Onward we go...

A Working Democracy, a 'Living Democracy'

GreenPolicy360 continues a multi-year defense of facts, science, & 'critical thinking skills'

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December 2025

Poynter Institute/Tom Jones: A year ago, in my Media Year in Review story, I asked the question: “Will Donald Trump go after the press, seeking to force them to comply with his presidency or face harsh consequences?”

The answer we now know is yes. A resounding yes. Turns out, it has been way worse than our greatest fears. Poynter is now tracking just how bad it has been with our Press Freedom Watch.

A free press is the bedrock of American democracy, vital enough to be enshrined in the Bill of Rights. It informs citizens, holds leaders accountable and preserves democratic principles.

After decades of relative freedom, the press now faces a precarious future. Since January, President Donald Trump and his administration have taken actions that have hindered the media’s ability to cover the government, including cutting funding, investigating outlets and detaining writers. Some actions appear tied to broader strategies, such as Project 2025, the 900-page conservative roadmap for reshaping government. Others focus on outlets that Trump has repeatedly singled out for criticism.

To document these developments, Poynter is compiling a list of federal actions affecting journalists, including lawsuits, policy changes, investigations, funding cuts, firings and detentions. The list will be updated periodically and does not include verbal attacks, threats or media companies’ anticipatory compliance...

Fact Checking on US 'No Entry' List

State Department orders officers to deny H-1B visas to those working in fact-checking

December 2, 2025

Source: Reuters

The State Department sent a memo to its consular officers ordering them to review the resumes and LinkedIn profiles of H-1B visa applicants and their accompanying family members for any evidence that they have worked in “areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others,” Reuters reported. H-1B visas are granted to foreign nationals seeking to work in the United States. The aim of the new policy is to identify and deny visas to anyone who engages in “censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression,” according to the memo. That justification echoes a common conservative talking point that fact-checking and identifying misinformation and disinformation is an act of censorship — one that journalists working in the fact-checking space deny...

Read more at Poynter's PolitiFact, International Fact Checking Network, and MediaWise.

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October 2025

In Remembrance of Rick Edmonds

Rick Edmonds chronicled the media business with savvy, care and wit

By Kristen Hare / @Poynter Institute

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/rick-edmonds-obituary/

Rick Edmonds, Poynter

"Rick was the real thing"

Personal memories and reflections about the life of a man of our times

By Steven Schmidt / @GreenPolicy360

Today we, at GreenPolicy360, remember a great writer, thinker and journalist who passed away this week.

Here's to Rick Edmonds who, in the final decades of over a half century career, chronicled the media and news business in a manner that was unparalleled.

Here's to our close friend, a kind and generous man who knew and explained the evolution of an industry that is essential as a foundation of our political system, if one accepts that a free press, the facts about and knowledge of civic life are essential to a functional, living democracy.

Rick knew and tracked the changes in the 'news biz' as it went from a World War II era to today, from print-to-online, ink-to-digital, broadcast TV-to-multichannel overwhelming multiverse. He covered small-to-metro, national-to-international companies, the Cronkite-type hosted nightly news shows to 'always on' 24/7/365 reporting of the events of the world. He knew the story of cable news, from Ted Turner CNN through the advent and rise of the Net, the Web, then outreach of big tech, and global social media. He investigated, watched and reported how digital advertising, database marketing and messaging, with algorithms was driving traffic and capturing minds, hearts, and pocketbooks, taking the revenue away from traditional, legacy news media and directing it to the new digital leaders of Wall St. growth. The disruption of the news business that has resulted from this shift in ad revenue is in the process of dramatically altering the news industry and Rick has been telling the story in detail.

These days Rick, and Poynter, have been looking closer and closer at AI, artificial intelligence entering the news and its implications, the difficulties of discerning facts from fiction, of necessity of being 'MediaWise' and how fact-checking is now necessary, especially as fake AI stories and video have arrived on the scene.

Rick Edmonds in this sense was writing a 'first draft' history of our generation gets the news of the day and how the news is being reshaped by technology, by revenue, by mergers and acquisitions, by corporate and powerful interests.

Rick saw, as we say, the 'story arc' up close. He interviewed the mover and shakers and, at his core, he was always getting the facts and giving his readers unequaled information about the many 'beats' he covered over his long career.

Rick was fortunate to enter the news arena and begin to learn the principles and craft as a young reporter and assistant to James Reston. In a sense he was given a high bar and a torch to carry forward, and entered an era of well known and respected news people as fact-tellers, often seen as brave and tested, as in the Edward R. Murrows reporting from the front lines of democracies war against totalitarianism and fascism in Europe. News, as delivered in the 40s and 50s and into the 60s was 'ink stained' and Rick saw the news business as a protector of human rights and civic freedoms. He saw, with his colleagues like Eugene Patterson of the Atlantic Constitution and Washington Post of the 'Pentagon Papers' who came to the St. Petersburg Times, now Tampa Bay Times (under the independent mission of the Poynter Institute), the importance of local news and the power of the press. Today, the Tampa Bay Times is often seen as one of top ten of major American newspapers in the country, and its parent, the Poynter Institute, is known for its continue work providing training and resources for journalists, as well as having created PolitFact and its follow on, the International Fact-Checking Network.

These stories and ideas Rick reported was a calling, a profession, and a legacy now that can be accessed to provide 'the way it was'. He explored, educated, and left us an unparalleled legacy revealing the importance and value of a free press and the need for and responsibility of fact-based news reporting.

We will always remember Rick and his memory and wisdom will continue with us.

We and our friends from around the world were beyond lucky to have Rick in our orbit.

SJS / October 2025

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Pope urges news agencies to stand as bulwark against lies, manipulation, post-truths

GreenPolicy360: The following excerpt from the Associated Press (AP) delivers the vantage point of a new Pope -- and a changing Church. The legacy of former Pope Francis carried a message meant for 21st Century challenges and now we are beginning to see Pope Leo also looking forward...

As the 21st century gains momentum and new inventions using the powers of computers and computer-assisted networking power an artificial intelligence (AI) race across nations, even a Pope is now warning of the dangers of technology. Who would have thought we'd be reading these words from a Media release from a news room at the Vatican?

“Algorithms generate content and data at a scale and speed never seen before. But who controls them? Artificial intelligence is changing the way we receive information and communicate, but who directs it and for what purposes? We must be vigilant in order to ensure that technology does not replace human beings, and that the information and algorithms that govern it today are not in the hands of a few.”

Associated Press

October 9, 2025

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV encouraged international news agencies on Thursday to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation, as he strongly backed a free, independent and objective press.

History’s first American pope called for imprisoned journalists to be released and said the work of journalists must never be considered a crime. Rather, journalism is a right and a pillar upholding “the edifice of our societies" that must be protected and defended.

“If today we know what is happening in Gaza, Ukraine and every other land bloodied by bombs, we largely owe it to them,” Leo said of journalists. “These extraordinary eyewitness accounts are the culmination of the daily efforts of countless people who work to ensure that information is not manipulated for ends that are contrary to truth and human dignity.“

Leo’s comments came in a speech to executives of international news agencies belonging to MINDS International, a consortium of leading agencies including The Associated Press.

In his five months as pope, the Chicago-born Leo has spoken out strongly on the need to protect freedom of expression and the rights of journalists. In his first meeting with reporters right after his election, Leo called for the release of imprisoned journalists and affirmed the “precious gift of free speech and the press.”

(The Catholic Pope) insisted that journalism was “not only an act of justice, but a duty of all those who long for a solid and participatory democracy.” In a letter to a crusading Peruvian journalist repeatedly sued for her work, Leo affirmed the freedom of the press was an “inalienable common good.”

On Thursday, he strongly encouraged news agencies amid a double crisis they are facing, with economic pressures threatening their survival and consumers increasingly unable to distinguish truth from lies.

He quoted Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” in asserting that the world needs free and objective information. He cited her warning that “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.”

Leo said even with the challenges posed today by artificial intelligence, news agencies must stand firm.

“With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing," he said. "You can also be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth.”

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More: Pope Leo quotes a prescient voice who spoke and wrote of the causes and disasters of the 20th Century.

It is time to remember and reread Hannah Arendt:

https://greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Arendt_-_On_truth,_constant_lying,_and_results.png

Threat to democracy... when a politics of lying are 'normalized' amid a maelstrom of 'gaslighting'... where facts and fact checking are overwhelmed by the volume and velocity of dis/misinfo... Hannah Arendt: On Truth, constant lying, and results

“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of truth vs falsehood is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed.” -- Hannah Arendt, "Truth and Politics", 1967

Hannah Arendt’s definitive work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, is an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history. Itbegins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. This edition includes an introduction by Anne Applebaum – a leading voice on authoritarianism and Russian history – who fears that “once again, we are living in a world that Arendt would recognize.” https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156701537/

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Values-Based Politics: Facts as a Guide to Understanding and Decision-Making

Getting to 'the Truth' with Critical Thinking Skills

At GreenPolicy360 we advocate for teaching the 'Art of Argumentation', which in former times was often referred to in education as 'Rhetoric'. Critical thinking can be defined as a willingness and ability to think carefully about what you read, hear, and believe about the world. In these times surrounded by the Internet's tech -- the Worldwide Web, social media mega-sites, targeted database- and algorithm messaging, and manipulative, emotionally charged marketing, where are the tools to see through the fog and recognize the truths?

Critical thinking abilities are top of mind as we point to the importance of facts, fact checking, science, discernment and judgment.

Let's hope for more teaching of how to think with awareness and reflection, and act in these tumultuous times to bring reasoned judgment to decisions.

"In a Working Democracy Facts Count. In the democratic republic of the United States, we at GreenPolicy360 have a strong belief in what we call "the 3 Ds: discussion, debate, decision-making."

Deliberation based on facts, science, and constant education brings informed, intelligent decisions as we, together and individually, navigate with success and prosper.

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After a St. Petersburg/Tampa, Florida start up, we look at what has become over the years --

An international network of fact-checking organizations

June 26, 2025 / The Poynter Report

Fighting for the truth

GlobalFact 12, the world’s largest annual gathering for fact-checkers, is now underway in Rio de Janeiro. More than 350 fact-checkers, policymakers, academics and platform representatives, including from TikTok, are gathering through Friday.

Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-Checking Network, writes for Poynter: “The truth is still worth fighting for.”

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2025/the-truth-is-still-worth-fighting-for/

Angie Holan: "When information is distorted or suppressed, people lose the ability to form authentic opinions — they can only choose between pre-selected falsehoods. And when people are inundated with competing claims without any assurance of factuality, they become confused and cynical, doubting truth can even be known. But there is objective truth about factual matters. Sometimes the facts can’t be documented, but they do have an independent existence that can’t be fictionalized. Many facts can be known, proven, and often replicated by honest investigators. That’s the work of fact-checkers, and fighting cynicism about knowledge itself is one of our most important tasks."

PolitiFact, a Poynter Institute Project

https://www.politifact.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolitiFact

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/feb/12/principles-truth-o-meter-politifacts-methodology-i/

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(Excerpt from Tech Policy Press, February 2025)

A brief history of fact-checking

For more than a quarter-century, a small corps of journalists have called themselves fact-checkers. They do not cover news events in the first instance. They apply traditional shoe-leather reporting techniques — interviewing people, scrutinizing public records, and, in the modern fashion, surveying the vast internet — to assess the veracity of public claims by politicians, other influential individuals, and digital crowds whose sharing of content makes it “go viral.”

In 2009, PolitiFact, a small nonprofit launched two years earlier by the St. Petersburg Times, won a Pulitzer Prize for examining 750 political claims during the 2008 presidential race and, in the words of the Pulitzer Board, “separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters.” PolitiFact’s founders hoped that this new spin on traditional journalism would help revive the news business by demonstrating that familiar news-gathering methods could be applied and digitally disseminated in a way that would arrest the flight of readers and advertisers.

Fact-checking persevered and proliferated modestly. But it didn’t slow the deterioration of the traditional news business. The once-highly regarded St. Pete Times bought out a competing paper and changed its name to the Tampa Bay Times, but the combined operation has continued to atrophy. In 2018, the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism school that owns the Tampa Bay Times, acquired PolitiFact from its property. PolitiFact takes philanthropic money and generates revenue from ads on its website and fees for its content paid by corporate customers like Meta and TikTok.

Poynter also houses the International Fact-Checking Network, which vets and supports more than 100 fact-checking teams, some tucked into global news organizations like the French AFP; others stand-alone outfits like Snopes in the U.S., Boom in India, and Rappler in the Philippines.

Fact-checking received an unanticipated economic boost in 2017 as a result of the revelation that Russian operatives had maintained fake accounts on major U.S.-based social media platforms to sow divisiveness in the American electorate and help Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Meta, then known as Facebook, began hiring outside fact-checkers to evaluate a selection of content on the company’s platforms: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

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References/links (updated continually by M Channel since the 2007-08 Launch of the PolitiFact initiative)

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:At_Poynter,_St_Petersburg,_Florida.png

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Fact_Checking_organizations_at_work.jpg

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Fact_Checking | Fact Checking @GreenPolicy360
https://reporterslab.org/fact-checking/ - https://reporterslab.org/locations/ | 446 sites/locations globally (2024)
https://reporterslab.org/fact-checkers-extend-their-global-reach-with-391-outlets-but-growth-has-slowed/ | 100+ Countries-391 Fact-Checking Sites (2022)
https://reporterslab.org/update-237-fact-checkers-in-nearly-80-countries-and-counting/ | 80 Countries-237 Fact-Checking Sites (2020)
https://reporterslab.org/number-of-fact-checking-outlets-surges-to-188-in-more-than-60-countries/ | 60 Countries-188 Fact-Checking Sites (2019)
http://reporterslab.org/global-fact-checking-up-50-percent/ | 37 Countries-96 Fact-Checking Sites (2016)
https://www.poynter.org/mediawise/ | MediaWise for Teens
http://www.politifact.com/ | PolitiFact via Poynter
https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/ | Poynter Int'l Fact Checking Network
http://www.poynter.org/category/fact-checking/ | Poynter Int'l List
https://reporterslab.org/fact-checking/ | Reporters Lab Fact-Checking News

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MediaWise

Nonprofit, nonpartisan project teaching millions of Americans how to sort fact from fiction online. Run by @poynter

Fact-checking 101 / #MediaLiteracy -- https://twitter.com/mediawise/status/1348685441386635265

https://twitter.com/mediawise

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Fact_Checking

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Another Year, Another Iteration of Dis/Misinfo, Lies/Falsehoods, Spins, Attacks, 'Dirty Politics', Social Media Bots, Foreign CyberOps, Tricks, Trolling, and Manipulations

It's no easy task to fact check & fact correct when the actors delivering bogus lines are getting clicks, views, engagement and followers, money and buzz

Fact Checker: Trump’s falsehood-laden speech to Congress

Via Washington Post

March 6, 2025

https://wapo.st/3F5yrCP

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As Election Looms, Disinformation ‘Has Never Been Worse’

A torrent of falsehoods, from home and abroad, have undermined what was once a shared faith in the honesty of America’s democracy

Read the unlocked article @ the NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/business/media/election-disinformation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UU4._3dJ.bvkQg72Z2lzk&smid=em-share

Russia, as well as Iran and China, have gleefully stoked many of the narratives to portray American democracy as dysfunctional and untrustworthy. Politicians and influential media figures have in turn given foreign adversaries plenty of fodder to work with, inciting and amplifying divisiveness for partisan advantage.

“They do have different tactics and different approaches to influence operations, but their goals are the same,” Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in Washington, said in an interview, referring to foreign adversaries. “Very simply, they’re looking to undermine American trust in our democratic institutions and the election specifically, and to sow partisan discord.”

Numerous factors have contributed to the surge in disinformation, which Ms. Easterly and other officials have warned will continue far beyond Election Day.

Social media platforms have helped to harden media ecosystems into distinct, disparate partisan enclaves where facts contradicting preconceived narratives are often unwelcome. Artificial intelligence has become an accelerant, making fake or fanciful content ubiquitous online with merely a few keystrokes.

In today’s political debate, it seems, facts matter less than feelings, which are easily manipulated online. It all played out in full in recent weeks, after two devastating hurricanes killed hundreds across the Southeast and prompted outlandish conspiracy theories and violent threats to rescue workers.

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More re: Fact Checking @GreenPolicy360

https://greenpolicy360.net/w/Fact_Checking

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US Intelligence officials see Moscow’s hand in presidential election disinformation

Via the Washington Post

October 22, 2024

U.S. intelligence officials said that Russians seeking to disrupt the U.S. elections created a faked video and other material smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with abuse allegations and are considering fomenting violence during and after the vote.

The faked content accused Walz of inappropriate interactions with students while a teacher and coach. The posts drew millions of views on social media, falsely tarring the Minnesota governor ahead of Nov. 5.

The officials said the Russian videos were part of the most active attempt by another country to tilt the 2024 election. They added that Russian government agencies and contractors, which generally seek to boost Republican former president Donald Trump’s campaign, are considering trying to instigate physical violence in the fraught period after voters cast their ballots.

“Some of these influence efforts are aimed at inciting violence and calling into question the validity of democracy as a political system, regardless of who wins,” a senior intelligence official told reporters in the latest of a series of background election-threat briefings.

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Via the Washington Post

October 14, 2024

Trump wages campaign against real-time fact checking

https://wapo.st/404SidM

The moves are the latest example of Trump’s long-held resistance to being called to account for his falsehoods, which have formed the bedrock of his political message for years. Just in recent weeks, for example, Trump has seized on fabricated tales of migrants eating pets and Venezuelan gangs overtaking cities in pushing his anti-immigration message as he seeks a second term in office.

Lucas Graves, a journalism and mass communications professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said that publicly chafing at fact-checking has become a form of tribalism among some Republicans.

"Within the political establishment on the right, it is now considered quite legitimate — and quite legitimate to say publicly and openly — that you disapprove of fact-checking,” said Lucas, author of “Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism. “Precisely because of Trump’s unusual relationship with the truth — even for a politician — it’s hardly surprising that he would object to it so volubly and so forcefully.”

The Washington Post Fact Checker team tallied that by the end of Trump’s presidency, he had made 30,573 false or misleading claims — an average of about 21 false, erroneous or misleading claims a day...

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Fact-checking Kamala Harris and Donald Trump's 1st presidential debate

Opinion via GreenPolicy360:

The US presidential campaign debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and produced by ABC News on September 10, 2024. Some 67 million watched via broadcast stations and additional millions of viewers watched on PBS and online streaming including ABC News Live, Disney+, Hulu, CBS News 24/7, CBSNews.com, and Paramount+.

One striking element of the televised production was live fact checking provided by debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis.

Many readers, followers and sharers of the GreenPolicy360 network also have seen our ongoing fact checking coverage and advocacy for increasing the importance given to facts in an era of political dis- and mis-information.

GreenPolicy360 has, as one of our projects, continued for years to share the growth of the work of the Poynter Institute with its PolitFact and the International Fact-Checking Network, beginning in St. Petersburg, Florida. The independent journalism of Poynter and its educational resources that have been made available throughout the US and nations globally to advance democratic institutions are key to an effective free press.

The September 10th Harris-Trump debate benefited in substance by having fact checkers from various news organization using their own fact-checking guidelines to assess and report on the statements the candidates made.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/sep/10/presidential-debate-live-fact-check-harris-trump/

We, at GreenPolicy360, have gone so far now as to recommend a fact-checking app that can utilize AI technology to transcribe candidates statements and via an onscreen scrolling window provide immediate factual analysis.

The business of fact checking has advanced greatly in a period of approximately ten years since its introduction (see the reports tracking this fact-checking progress here at GreenPolicy360). The importance of facts in democracies, as policies are debated and political issues assessed 'on the merits' or not, is a subject for everyday consideration.

We speak of the "3Ds, discussion, debate and decision-making" and facts are a foundation of a working democratic process and living democratic institutions.

Fact Checking

Facts are a foundation of a working democratic process

A 'Working Democracy'

https://greenpolicy360.net/w/Fact_Checking

Trump: With live fact checking during the debate, 33 false statements

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An independent press is critical to sustaining democracy, says Harvard professor

Hundreds of fact-checkers from around the world attended the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network GlobalFact 11 Summit

Poynter Institute's Fact Checking -- the PolitiFact model and the International Fact-Checking Network -- Continue into a Second Decade

https://www.poynter.org/news/fact-checking/

https://www.politifact.com/

https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/

2024 -- Continuing to Grow a Global Fact-Checking News Model & Defense of Democratic Institutions

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2024/populism-is-a-major-threat-to-democracy-political-scientist-steven-levitsky-warns/

GlobalFact 11

Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, is a Keynote Speaker at the 2024 Global Fact-Checking Summit

Journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, is the featured keynote speaker at GlobalFact 11, and joined by experts in journalism, democracy, artificial intelligence and debunking online misinformation.

Additional speakers at the fact-checking summit include Steve Levitsky, Nikita Roy and Craig Silverman.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina – Though democracies have demonstrated surprising resilience in recent decades, populism has emerged as a major threat, Harvard government professor Steven Levitsky warned fact-checkers.

Populist candidates are winning elections today much more frequently than at any other time in history, Levitsky told attendees at GlobalFact 11, an annual fact-checking conference by Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network held this year in Sarajevo. One of the reasons populism is on the rise is because political establishments — which include political parties, large interest groups and major traditional media outlets — are weakening. Populists no longer need the resources provided by political establishments to run for office.

Establishments do not act as a single entity, Levitsky said. “But collectively, political establishments do tend to impose certain parameters on politics, both in terms of political style and in terms of policy substance.”

The weakening of political establishments is “unquestionably” democratized as it opens up the political system to a wider array of people, said Levitsky, who was interviewed by IFCN director Angie Drobnic Holan. But it also means that democratic institutions are left vulnerable to anti-system forces.

Though populism is not inherently anti-democratic, recently elected populists such as former U.S. President Donald Trump have been more likely to threaten democratic institutions.

Still, Levitsky said, there is hope. There are as many democracies today as there were in the early 2000s despite an overall deterioration in the conditions for such institutions.

In the 1990s, democratic governing systems seemed to be on the verge of becoming ubiquitous. Between 1975 and 2000, the number of democratic countries nearly tripled. But in recent decades, the rise of China and Russia have threatened a geopolitical balance of power dominated by Western democracies.

“Western democracies… face growing illiberal threats from within,” Levitsky said. “Western governments across the West — Europe, the United States — have lost both the will and the capacity to effectively promote democracy abroad.”

And yet the overall number of democracies in the world remains relatively steady, Levitsky said. Democratic declines and “backsliding” in some countries have been offset by democratic advances in others.

“The world is still considerably more democratic than it was in the 1990s despite the rise of China, despite (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, despite Trump, despite social media, despite AI, despite COVID,” Levitsky said. “To me, that suggests a fair amount of democratic resilience.”

One reason for this resilience is that many new autocracies are fragile and prone to failure. They often inherit weak states and thus fail to deliver public services to their citizens. That then breeds dissent, which they struggle to repress, Levitsky said.

The other reason democracies have generally been resilient is economic development. When resources are dispersed among the people instead of being controlled by the government, it is easier for people to support opposition movements. They no longer have to depend on the government for their livelihood.

“Democracy absolutely requires opposition,” Levitsky said. “If there’s one thing that sustains democracy, it’s opposition, and sustainable opposition requires two things: It requires autonomous citizens, and it requires an independent private sector.”

An independent press also plays a critical role in sustaining opposition, Levitsky said. People cannot oppose a government without information.

“We’ve yet in any Western society to discover a means of providing independent sources of information to citizens without independent media,” Levitsky said. “So without an independent, self-sustaining media, it is impossible to guarantee citizens the information they need to oppose the government.”

More from Steven Levitsky (2017)

Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.

Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die. Now the question is, can our democracy be saved?

"How Democracies Die"

http://images.penguinrandomhouse.com/teachers_guides/9781524762940.pdf

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Time • Foreign Affairs • WBUR • Paste

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562246/how-democracies-die-by-steven-levitsky-and-daniel-ziblatt/

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Time for Live Fact-Checking Tech Dev

Time for a New App for Reporters Around the World

Update - August 3, 2024

The international GreenPolicy network has been pushing for "Live fact checking" to accompany candidate debates. This past week we again saw the need for "truth telling" in politics. A live televised event by an association of U.S. Black Journalists was delayed as a presidential candidate balked at going onstage 'if he was going to be fact-checked' while answering questions.

https://www.journal-isms.com/trump-threatened-walkout-over-fact-checking/

https://www.axios.com/2024/08/02/trump-nabj-fact-checking-black-journalists

So we find ourselves again proposing and repeating our proffered proposal two months ago during the US presidential campaign, that we think "it's time" for "Live Fact-Checking" technology.

Let's have PolitiFact, or the International Fact Checking Network, or Reporter's Lab, or a non-profit, yet to be named organization put a beta capability together now.

A team of real reporters monitoring debates and, behind the scenes prompting a new AI chat app that would provide answers and context on validity, truthfulness and/or non-validity, lack of truthfulness of statements made by a candidate.

Real reporters would review, edit/polish the AI answers.

Why not have a scroll bottom-of-screen, or a side bar, or a pop up, any graphic technology that would provide an audio beep to announce fact-context ala viewer notes.

If a statement is half-true or partly true or just a plain prevarication (look up the "prevaricate" definition then that would be displayed and announced in some appropriate form.

Visuals can be added to make truth-meter a value proposition, value add in business.

In later versions the app developed (initially as an open-source contribution to democracy) the apps capabilities could be improved, adding options (perhaps with significant in-app revenue potential) that will move this work product into more refined versions and move into educational and multiple online uses.

Isn't it about time for advanced Fact Checking technology, a software as a service value add for audiences and positive move to advance working democracy?

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June 30

In the interest of facts, education, and informed discussion, debate, and decisions ....

Enough with Political Debates Where Facts Don't Count

Isn't it time to add a new app, 'Instant Fact-Check', to political debates?

We are proposing "Live Fact-Checking" for presidential and other streamed/broadcast political debates

A fact-checking add-on solution was explained by GreenPolicy360's siterunner after the June 27th event.

We offer Steve Schmidt's opinion on Fact-Checking here:

Fact-Checking for Live, Broadcast/Streamed Political Debates

This week, on Thursday night, June 27th, some 50 million people tuned in to the CNN hosted 2024 US presidential campaign debate between current president Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump.

The debate rules had been negotiated between CNN and the candidate staffs and featured limited time periods for the candidates to answer questions or make statements and charges, with a system of lights monitoring the time periods, and microphones being muted when each candidate's time period expired. What wasn't addressed -- and turned out to be a critical issue and problem -- can be described as what do you do when questions are answered and instead a charged series of claims are made that range far from facts, and verbal accusations pile up, one after another to a degree that corrections by the accused candidate become impossible in the time allotted.

The presidential debate turned into an event far from facts and debate, but rather an overwhelmed format that led to calls to change the rules in the future to ensure a back-and-forth debate can take place.

We have a suggestion to make debates in the future work as *debates, not debacles. The key to success could be enabling fact-checking capabilities to accompany the live event. This seems like an idea whose time has come and software/services like AI that have recently been rolling out can do real-time fact checking in ways that are possible in new forms. Having debates *on the merits will breathe new life into rhetorical arguments that deserve to be better tomorrow.

A Debate to Remember

by Steve Schmidt / June 30, 2024

What happened in the presidential debate on June 27, 2024? Most of us are still wondering what was 'That' about?

The current president went to Atlanta to debate a former president -- the results were consequential -- and devastating. Another word, with exclamation, would be "Inconceivable!"

In a call out to classic movies lore (and memes), inconceivable! brings back memories of Wallace Shawn in "The Princess Bride". Shawn's character, Vizzini, immortalized the line, "Inconceivable!". This past week "Inconceivable!" returned on stage and delivered consequences beyond imagination.

Since the debate, watched by some 50 million people, the after effects have not ended. The questions that shocked -- of Joe Biden's performance, his health, his competence -- are now reverberating across the country. The writer Bob Woodward compared Biden's performance with an H bomb, and questioned what happened in President Biden's preparation for the debate.

The look of the 81 year old President was, from the opening of the debate until its closing worrying. The President looked pale, almost without any TV makeup. He was unsteady, his voice hoarse, he held on to his podium, he wavered, unsteady in action and words, His answers to questions became confused. On questions that were politically essential, such as women's reproductive rights and the recent Supreme Court decision striking down decades of Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, he stumbled though he had been addressing this question-of-questions daily for months.

Meanwhile, the former President unleashed a torrent of verbal charges and attacks, refused to answer questions, and claimed throughout the debate that his term in office was the best ever. In fact, it wasn't and most every claim he made veered far from reality and fact.

Afterwards, Heather Cox Richardson, a well-known historian, wrote that the former president used a technique called the "Gish Gallup", that overwhelms an opponent by "by providing an excessive number of arguments with no regard for accuracy". Trump's on stage broadside was aided by debate rules that muted the President's microphone and, to expect the President to fact check the ex-President's 'firehose' of claims would have been 'inconceivable', even if the President wasn't expected to speak of his own vision of a political future.

The planning of the debate did not produce any means of 'fact checking', the two CNN moderators and no way to call out lies and charges made, no way to prevent the debate from descending -- and so it did. The microphone of President Biden was muted, he couldn't answer, he just had to stand there looking pale, distraught while the moderators and world watched.

At this point, one could hope that future debates will put in place some 'guard rails' and/or moderator/commentator input … Why not fact checkers, perhaps using new AI tools for rapid response capabilities that can deliver a scroll of verifications ...

Fact checkers? You might ask, who needs fact checkers (with badges)?!

We need facts and fact-checking as a profession has come a long way in recent years Fact-checking organizations have spread from the US to democratic nations of the world.

The International Fact-Checking Network, in fact, started in the US with the efforts of the Poynter Institute and its PolitiFact original work. The Reporters Lab of Duke University is also bringing fact checking services into media and educating as they go. Amid current political turmoil and fire hoses of dis- and mis-information across the Internet and social media, the new counters to those pedaling lies are available to use as services.

This past week, for example, a GlobalFact 11th annual international conference was held, successfully drawing from news, media and public interest groups internationally and offering fact checking 'best practices'.

Bottom line, facts count. There are ways to do better with debates. Before the next presidential debate, let's take time to present new ideas for debate improvement.

It's not Inconceivable! we can do better. To maintain and protect the Republic, and advance the nation's democratic institutions, we need facts. It's time for fact-checking real time in online debates. Our democracy will thank you and it's our responsibility to make it happen.

As Benjamin Franklin was reported saying of the new US experiment as he left Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention: We have "a Republic, if you can keep it."

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Global Fact, the Eleventh Global Fact-Checking Summit

June 2024

Presented in Sarajevo by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) of the Poynter Institute in partnership with Zašto ne, the GlobalFact 11th annual gathering of news organizations, media, educators, writers and journalists June 26-28, 2024) empowers fact-checkers to uphold the industry’s highest standards of excellence through discussions, training and networking events with globally renowned fact-checking experts.

What is GlobalFact?

GlobalFact is the world’s largest and most impactful annual summit for professional fact-checking.

Fact-checkers and supporters of fact-checking discuss industry-wide challenges, exchange best practices and build collaborative solutions to improve our shared information ecosystem.

https://www.globalfact11.com/event/0116938c-093b-4f34-afb7-09c3312aaa98/summary

https://www.poynter.org/event/globalfact-11/

Looking at the launch and growth of fact-checking organizations

From Poynter Institute, Florida to Cities, States and Nations of the World

The time is now with the advent of the Internet to refresh the importance of truth telling

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Fact_Checking | Fact Checking @GreenPolicy360
https://reporterslab.org/fact-checkers-extend-their-global-reach-with-391-outlets-but-growth-has-slowed/ | 100+ Countries-391 Fact-Checking Sites (2022)
https://reporterslab.org/update-237-fact-checkers-in-nearly-80-countries-and-counting/ | 80 Countries-237 Fact-Checking Sites (2020)
https://reporterslab.org/number-of-fact-checking-outlets-surges-to-188-in-more-than-60-countries/ | 60 Countries-188 Fact-Checking Sites (2019)
http://reporterslab.org/global-fact-checking-up-50-percent/ | 37 Countries-96 Fact-Checking Sites (2016)
https://www.poynter.org/mediawise/ | MediaWise for Teens
http://www.politifact.com/ | PolitiFact via Poynter
https://www.poynter.org/ifcn/ | Poynter Int'l Fact Checking Network
http://www.poynter.org/category/fact-checking/ | Poynter Int'l List
https://reporterslab.org/fact-checking/ | Reporters Lab Fact-Checking News

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2021

https://www.rappler.com/world/global-affairs/full-text-maria-ressa-speech-nobel-peace-prize-awarding-ceremony-2021/

https://youtu.be/m1w3rRRBoq8

"So please, with me, just close your eyes for just a moment, and imagine the world as it should be. A world of peace, trust, and empathy, bringing out the best that we can be... Open your eyes. Now go, we have to make it happen. Please, let’s hold the line together. Thank you." -- Maria Ressa

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In a Healthy Democracy, Facts Count

A 'Facts Count' Project of GreenPolicy360.com & StrategicDemands.com

The GreenPolicy360 eOS Network

St. Petersburg / Clearwater, Florida

Tens of Millions of Visits, Interactions & Shares

https://greenpolicy360.net/w/Table_of_Contents_(ToC)_GreenPolicy360

Green Education

https://greenpolicy360.net/w/Table_of_Contents_(ToC)_GreenPolicy360

https://strategicdemands.com/http-www-strategicdemands-com/

Fact Checking, Facts Count

Facts are a highest priority @GreenPolicy360 & Strategic Demands

Facts in a Connected, Internet-Era

Rising up against a barrage of online false, misleading claims

Information volleys, viral conspiracies, the 'dark web' become frontlines in a political war

https://greenpolicy360.net/w/Digital_Rights

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Modern universities embraced the Enlightenment tradition of a free search for knowledge in the belief that informed discussion fed by a wide range of ideas was the best way to reach toward truth. As ideas were tested in public debate, people would be able to choose the best of them. This was the basis of academic freedom.

“Factuality itself depends for its continued existence upon the existence of the nontotalitarian world.” -- Hannah Arendt

Democracy at Risk

A Year Reviewing Fact Checking Around the World