Writing

People have an innate love of truth, so when evidence and reason show a statement isn’t accurate, it matters. Fact-checking clears the haze of rhetoric and points toward hard truths. The purpose of fact-checking is to give citizens the information they need to govern themselves in a democracy. My writing reflects this commitment to verification and truth-seeking.

I currently serve as director of the International Fact-Checking Network at the Poynter Institute, where I work with 170+ fact-checking organizations across nearly 80 countries. The IFCN supports fact-checkers through networking, capacity building, and collaboration, and maintains the Code of Principles, which sets global standards for nonpartisanship, transparency, and methodology in fact-checking. I manage grant programs including the Global Fact Check Fund, which is distributing $12 million to support fact-checking worldwide through 2026. I work to defend the practice of verification in an era of widespread misinformation, and I speak up when fact-checking is under attack.

Before joining the IFCN in June 2023, I served as editor-in-chief of PolitiFact for 10 years and was part of the team that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. I completed a Nieman Fellowship in 2023.

The Case for Facts. My cover essay for Nieman Reports’ Winter 2025 issue argued that rigorous fact-checking remains essential journalism, even when it doesn’t change minds: “It holds the line on reality for history’s sake.” Read the essay at Nieman Reports or Poynter.

Will the future of fact-checking flourish or founder? (April 2025) On International Fact-Checking Day, I wrote a call to action as the community faces unprecedented challenges to information integrity. I noted that whether fact-checking continues depends on whether people are willing to insist on evidence, on facts, on integrity. 

The truth is still worth fighting for (June 2025) These were my opening remarks from GlobalFact 12 in Rio de Janeiro on universal human values around truth. 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.

Let’s say it plainly: Fact-checking is not censorship (April 2024) Fact-checkers’ strong desire to keep information available and accessible is yet another irony of the fact-checkers-as-censors argument. The reality is that fact-checking is an activity deeply embedded in the ideals of free speech and free expression.

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I also was the editor of two major statements written collaboratively by member organizations of the International Fact-Checking Network.

The Sarajevo Statement (June 2024) Fact-checkers restate their longtime belief that all people have the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas. Fact-checking is deeply rooted in these principles. 

An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg from the world’s fact-checkers, nine years later (January 2025) As Meta announced an end to its fact-checking program in the United States, fact-checkers around the world warned of a setback to accuracy online and potential global consequences. 

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Here are a few highlights from my fact-checking work with PolitiFact, where I served as editor-in-chief from 2013 to 2023.

PolitiFact’s Pulitzer Prize. Our team won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2009 for fact-checking the 2008 election. Our entry included round-ups of fact-checks of the two nominees, John McCain and Barack Obama, as well as candidates from the primary contests (Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and others). I co-wrote stories with Robert Farley, one on Clinton’s travels as First Lady and another on the root causes of the 2008 financial crisis. I also wrote a fact-check on Sarah Palin, Barack Obama and “putting lipstick on a pig.”

About fact-checking. I wrote this story, “7 steps to better fact-checking”,  to explain how we fact-check and to suggest search strategies for those new to fact-checking. I wrote a column reflecting on the dynamics of fact-checking after attending the 2014 Global Fact-checking Summit in London. My column about covering the 2016 presidential race and the Iowa caucuses talked about fact-checking from the trail. For the New York Times, I wrote about fact-checking Donald Trump and the proliferation of fact-checking in 2016. Previewing the 2016 presidential debates, I wrote a fact-checker’s advice for debate moderators. In 2019, I wrote an essay for The Atlantic on why President Donald Trump is the most-fact-checked president.

PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year. PolitiFact selects one inaccurate statement each year that was the most significant. I’ve written or co-written the story explaining our choice:

Fact-checking health care. In 2009 and 2010, my fact-checking work focused on the drafting and passage of what is now the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare. Our team wrote hundreds of fact-checks about health care, and it’s one of the most fact-checked topics at PolitiFact.

As the law was being drafted in 2009, I reported and wrote “Health care reform: A simple explanation”; when passage was imminent, I expanded and revised that story in  “Health care reform: A simple explanation, updated.”

I read the original text of the House health care bill in 2009 to report and write the story “E-mail ‘analysis’ of health bill needs a check-up,” which debunked a chain email that cited phony page numbers in the legislation. When HealthCare.gov was about to launch in 2013, I wrote a story summarizing the team’s key fact-checks of health care, “Top 16 myths about the health care law.”

Last updated 2025