Deciding What’s True

Lucas Graves is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin. He is the coauthor of The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism (Columbia, 2011), and his writing has appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, Wired, the New York Times, and other publications.

A lively page-turner about political fact-checking that also digs deep into the very foundations of public knowledge. What do we really know, and how do we know it? Graves provides thought-provoking answers. In an age of partisan warfare, this urgently needed book reveals the transformations, tensions, and continuing virtues of journalistic objectivity. -- Rodney Benson, New York University In Deciding What's True, Lucas Graves provides a thoughtful, empirically grounded analysis of the major fact-checking organizations, studying their evolution and importance in the rapidly changing world of journalism. It is absolutely essential reading for journalists, news executives, and their audiences. -- Herbert Gans, Columbia University A timely, compelling, and important account of the rise of political fact-checking, a development-indeed, a movement-aimed at not only improving the quality of public discourse but also invigorating the practice of journalism. This book amounts to nothing less than a genuinely new chapter in the history of modern American journalism. -- Theodore L. Glasser, Stanford University Graves follows a cadre of journalists in their attempts to nail down that most slippery of objects-the fact. In so doing, he shows that, in a networked age, 'the facts' have never been more central, or more problematic, for the culture of journalism. A must-read for anyone interested in the state of journalism today. -- David Ryfe, University of Iowa School of Journalism In an era marked by broad challenges to the credibility of journalism, Deciding What's True provides an insightful look at major transformations in the knowledge-making regimes that foster the veracity of news. Drawing on a vast array of sources and evidence, Graves sheds light on the practices and experiences of fact-checking and its effect on the interplay among politics, media, and society. -- Pablo J. Boczkowski, Northwestern University A keenly observed visit to a new world whose geography we can now better comprehend. Kirkus Reviews

• Acknowledgments Part I. The Landscape of Fact-Checking Introduction 1. Ink-Stained Fact-Checkers 2. Objectivity, Truth Seeking, and Institutional Facts Part II. The Work of Fact-Checking 3. Choosing Facts to Check 4. Deciding What's True 5. Operating the Truth-O-Meter Part III. The Effects of Fact-Checking 6. Fact-Checkers and Their Publics 7. The Limits of Fact-Checking Epilogue Notes Selected Bibliography Index