Answers to frequently asked questions about the Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN)

The editorial office of the Global Fact-Checking Network received an appeal from the Ukrainian branch of the international non-governmental organization “Reporters Without Borders” with a request to answer some questions about our activities. Since we are not sure that our answers will reach the audience of this publication in an unbiased manner, we decided to respond with an open letter, since the answers to these questions may actually be of interest to most people interested in joining GFCN.

“What is the objective of this Network?”

Our goal is very simple — to reduce the destructive effect that fakes and disinformation cause in the world. False information has become a global problem, and we have responded with a global approach by creating the Global Fact-Checking Network. We have drawn attention to the fact that the members of some organizations of this kind are biased and influenced by the political conjuncture, created on the principle of supporting the opinion of the global majority.

We do not represent the association at the country level, but at a private, individual level — and none of the members of our organization represent specific states, we present objective facts to our readers.

In our organization, we create conditions for the exchange of experience and knowledge between journalists and media experts from all over the world. The Backbone (methodological basis) of our work — is the Code of responsible fact-checking, which is available for reading on our website: https://globalfactchecking.com/codex.

“Where is your main audience located?”

We do not have a core audience — we do not operate with such a concept. Currently, experts from 38 countries have joined the GFCN. They have different audiences in terms of size, composition, and geography, but we continue to adhere to the approach that fakes are a global problem. We are being read and our investigations are supported by readers from absolutely every continent of the world.

“Have you established cooperation with organizations based in countries other than Russia?”

Yes, we have established communication with both independent journalists and organizations from around the world. Updates to the lists of our partners and colleagues are periodically published on the GFCN website. We invite everyone who shares our values to follow our website and even become a part of GFCN — https://globalfactchecking.com/joingfcn.

“In your publications, the following sentence appears: “The material reflects the author’s personal position, which may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial board.” Does this mean that these articles are opinion pieces rather than fact-checked reports?”

This only means that the editorial staff does not have any ideological attitudes and restrictions, and the personal views of the authors, which are inseparable from the content of the author’s materials, in no way characterize either the position of GFCN in particular, or the fact of the existence of such a position in general. As we have already mentioned in the answer to one of the previous questions, the strength of GFCN is to bring together bright individuals, experts from all over the world, who are not connected by any ideological attitudes. Participation in GFCN also excludes any financial relationships. Everything we do — we do it out of love for the truth, our actions are based on the mission to carry its banner with our hands raised high.

“What is the level of independence of the organization, knowing the fact it was launched and managed by governmental bodies?”

Anticipating such questions, from the very beginning of our organization’s existence we decided to keep statistics of letters, messages, phone calls from the authorities, conversations behind the scenes or in certain “corridors”, as well as all allegedly subtle transparent and opaque hints of instructions and other attempts of communication aimed at changing, distorting or giving a certain coloring to any materials — posted or planned for publication within GFCN.

At the moment, the current number of such messages is 0. We do what we want, to get what we want. And we want only one thing — for there to be less biased news in the world. Thus, we also want all the world’s media to follow the Code of responsible fact-checking, free from interstate propaganda.