Ahead of another pivotal election year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin Watch are teaming up to produce more Fact Briefs, 150-word answers to yes/no questions based on claims made in the info sphere.
Wisconsin Watch has partnered with Gigafact since 2022 to produce more than 600 bite-sized fact checks. It’s also part of a network of 18 nonprofit newsrooms across the country working to equip the public with accurate information to inform civic discussion.
The Journal Sentinel, part of the USA Today Network and the largest newsroom in Wisconsin, was an early adopter of PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking nonprofit founded in 2007.
As Journal Sentinel Executive Editor Greg Borowski wrote in a column at jsonline.com, the switch to Fact Briefs will appeal to readers seeking accurate information quickly and with a clearer true-or-false format, rather than PolitiFact’s six-tiered “score card” for assessing whether a claimant is telling the truth. Fact Briefs focus less on the claimant, and more on the claim itself.
“This partnership will increase the number of Wisconsin-focused items and allow us to present them more quickly and in ways we think readers most want to get them,” wrote Borowski, who is also a member of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s Board of Directors.
What is different about the new Fact Briefs?
Lots. While PolitiFact relies on a six-level rating system, from True to Pants on Fire, the Fact Brief approach takes a question and provides a simple yes/no answer. It limits the answers to 150 words – which forces the questions to be specific and the answers to be sharp.
“We think that will resonate with readers who want solid information, not a scorecard,” Borowski wrote. “Additionally, the approach is focused on the claim itself, as readers commonly understand it, not the semantic vagaries and variations of how a particular politician may have stated it in a given moment. We think that will make the answers more useful and universal, since many people may be making similar claims. In short, the approach digs into the claim, not who made it.”
The Journal Sentinel will use a variety of reporters, tapping into the expertise they have developed covering politics or specific topics, such as government, public health or the environment. At Wisconsin Watch, their primary Fact Brief reporter is Tom Kertscher, a former Journal Sentinel staffer and PolitiFact veteran.
Fact Briefs include a robust list of reliable sources supporting the conclusion for readers to review. There may be times when research missed a key counterpoint, and both the Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin Watch welcome readers challenging them with alternative conclusions.
Fact Briefs are not opinions about whether someone is lying. Instead, Fact Briefs try to discern whether something is true or not.
The items will be published on the websites for both organizations outside of any paywall and shared for use by newsrooms around the state, as well as in print in the Journal Sentinel and other newspapers around the state.
