I want facts. And that means that often, some of my most productive reading is on blogs.
Bloggers (unpaid, writing in their spare time, dismissed as hobbyists by “proper” journalists) produce the goods often enough to keep me coming back. Whether its Tony Humphreys‘ views on autism, a questionable advertising claim, or alleged social welfare fraud, the bloggers got there first, taking on the stories in the “mainstream” narrative.
Whenever twitter introduces me to a new fact-checking blog, I bookmark and add it to the list.
I’ve pitched variations on a fact-checking column several times (Simon McGarr suggested calling it Reality Check) with limited success. I’ve sold a few stories checking specific claims, but it remains a dream.
Today, I was chatting with Colin McGovern. We thought it might be a good idea to bring some of the fact-checking bloggers together.
Group blogging overcomes one of the problems with blogging. A single blogger fact-checking stories in her spare time can generate maybe one or two updates a week. Several bloggers working together can produce regular updates.
And let’s be honest, there’s a lot of raw material out there.
So would you be interested in joining Reality Check? Let us know.
PS: Since I’ve had a couple of inquiries, I should add that if you’d rather not have your name pubhlised below for all to see, I will happily accept any expressions of interest privately in email also: gerard@faduda.net
Definitely would be interested in this: special subject being the abuses of History.
Hi, Ger. I would be interested in any education related input that may be needed, from time to time.
Great idea, would like to get involved. Can be reached @joeykudo on Twitter or on email provided.
Definitely interested! was actually thinking of doing pretty much the same thing
+1
Happy to give it a go. Sign me up!
I am interested,but inexpert in areas around Arts :funding, intellectual rights, copyrights, online dissemination of original works and fair -use. It’s a limited field BUT as SOPAIreland has proven (and the Google Book Settlement) there is a power of material that gets jettisoned via traditional media-sources that should be utilised in other forms of media.
One of the things that lacks in some coverage is bringing in related facts. However time is at a premium for me but I’d like to help out in censorship areas, if that is any way helpful ?