Fact-Checking Sites or How to Spot Bogus News

We are all victims of unknowingly repeating facts or sharing websites that are totally false. But there are many ways to verify the factual accuracy of articles, websites, and news outlets. Listed below are some sites dedicated to fact-checking. All the fact-checking organizations linked below are nonpartisan and transparent about their processes and staff.

• Factcheck.org A project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, FactCheck is a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” that monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political officials in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.
• Politifact Truth-O-Meter This Pulitzer Prize-winning website from the Tampa Bay Times provides analysis of candidates and issue statements to learn the truth about American politics.
• Snopes.com The site was founded to research urban legends and has grown into the oldest and largest fact-checking site on the Internet. A good resource for checking popular culture stories shared on the web, Snopes is routinely included in annual “Best of the Web” lists and has been the recipient of two Webby awards.
• Rumorguard.org A fact-checking site from the News Literacy Project.
• Fact Check Explorer is a fact-checking database from Google. Google does not endorse or create any of the fact checks.
• AP News Fact Check Fact-checking, accountability journalism, and misinformation coverage from Associated Press journalists around the globe.
• Opensecrets.org Nonpartisan, independent nonprofit, the Center for Responsive Politics, is the nation’s premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.”
• The Washington Post’s fact-checking website.

Sometimes statistics displayed in charts and graphs can be misleading. Many of us remember the quote attributed to Mark Twain – “There are three kinds of lies, Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. (Mark Twain, however, credits this to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.) To check statistics, the following websites can help you.

• TEDEd animation by Mark Liddell.
• From a Fordham University Libraries guide on Fake News.
• An entertaining TED talk by data journalist Mona Chalabi.
• TED Talk animation by Lea Gaslowitz.
• How to identify misleading information in graphs and charts.

NOTES

1. “SIFT: Quick Source and Claim Checking to Spot Fake or Misleading Information,” Library and Learning Center, Research Guides, Research Tips, Modesto Junior College, June 30, 2025
2. Barbara Mikkelson, “Mark Twain on Coldest Winter,” Snopes. Oct. 5, 2002.