PolitiFact joined with other fact-checkers from around the world to observe International Fact-Checking Day on April 2. Here’s the column I wrote about why we need a day to celebrate fact-checking and how the International Fact-Checking Network came up with the idea. It starts:
With all the phony headlines and hoaxes floating around the Internet, it can feel like April Fool’s any day of the year.
At PolitiFact, we’re debunking more false claims than ever. It’s a sad trend that people will maliciously invent fictitious stories and then pass them off as real, hoping for clicks. That’s our definition of fake news.
The hoax stories tend to straddle the line between absurd and disturbing. READ MORE …