Fact-checking

How we work

AFP: Investigating viral, harmful misinformation
AFP’s fact-checkers seek to investigate dubious claims circulating online which are viral, impactful and potentially harmful to the public. The claims we verify surface in a variety of ways, including on social media platforms, blogs and websites, messaging apps and other forums in the public sphere.

We identify claims we want to investigate by assessing whether a fact-check would be in the public interest and whether we would be able to gather clear and sufficient evidence to disprove the specific claim or claims being made. AFP fact-checking teams verify facts, not opinions or beliefs. If we are unable to establish strong and cross-checked evidence, we will not publish a fact-check.

We pay particular attention to misinformation that could endanger people's health or lives, damage democratic processes, or promote hate speech and racism.

We apply the same investigative approach and standards of evidence regardless of who has made the claim, and we do not focus on any one candidate, party or website. We may however produce more fact-checks on sources that are consistent spreaders of potentially harmful misinformation. You can read more about the ethical standards that uphold AFP’s commitment to impartiality and independence here.
 

Oštro: Analyzing media content published in Slovene media, also fact-checking statements of politicians and officials and other who enjoy influence and power in society, as well as posts on social media, forums, blogs.
The evaluation of media content is based on the verification of publications, claims, statements and other statements, and the search for evidence that can confirm or refute what has been published.

Fact-checking analysis is based on the use of credible and verifiable sources. We provide all statements and findings with evidence in the form of documents, images, files or with links to credible sources of information.

All findings that the verification leads us to and that are important for the evaluation of the verified statement are clearly and precisely presented in the analysis. This also applies to cases where the claim turns out to be true.
All information that we find out and add subsequently is clearly marked as an update.

Based on independent verification and analysis, we evaluate each publication according to the type of information. A post can have multiple ratings depending on the number of individual claims. More about the ratings is available here.
When preparing the categorization, we started from the methodology of the non-profit organization EAVI - European Association for Viewers Interests.

See AFP fact-checks in Croatian here, Oštro fact-checks in Slovenian here.