Assessing the consistency of fact-checking in political debates

Abstract

In the scholarly literature on journalism and political communication, there has been an expectation that fact-checkers would play an important role in ensuring democratic accountability, especially during pivotal political moments. This piece scrutinizes the level of agreement between five Brazilian fact-checking groups and the reasons for divergences in their verdicts during the presidential debates of the 2022 campaign. The emphasis is on claims checked by two or more organizations. Through a mixed-methods approach, it shows a widespread lack of consistency among fact-checkers, which is explained by their conflicting methods and interpretations of candidates’ words. This study adds to the existing scholarship by challenging the dominant framework on fact-checking, putting into question its democracy-building role in critical circumstances, as well as the epistemology it relies on to assess the veracity of political discourse. Complementary, it introduces a valuable methodology for studying the rationale underlying fact-checking ratings.