A 2022 report from the Duke Reporters Lab found that 29 states had no independent local fact-checkers monitoring politicians’ statements. Even in the states with robust local media markets, the volume of unsupported claims outpaced their ability to assess them. Gigafact is addressing the dearth of local fact-checkers.

In the lead up to the 2024 elections, Wisconsin Watch published, “Did Wisconsin candidate Tony Wied lobby to raise gas prices?”

This fact brief responded to a claim made by Wied’s opponent in a podcast interview. Wisconsin Watch was able to spot the claim using Gigafact AI tools, and the fact brief helped set the record straight for Wisconsinites attempting to make their choice at the ballot box.

Read more about Gigafact’s tools for responsive political coverage.

Fact briefs are a mechanism to hold politicians accountable for what they say, but they also give them things to say! Once newsrooms start publishing fact briefs, politicians tend to share them—sometimes to score political points, sometimes to advocate for their policies, and sometimes just to show they know what’s going on in their communities.

Case study: Learn more how The Nevada Independent used fact briefs to assess the claims made in the 2024 Washoe County GOP Voter Guide.

Fact briefs are direct interceptions of live conversations that are underway in a given community. Their’ question format titles are designed to do especially well on search, because people are often searching for this information when they are published. A survey of all newsrooms’ fact briefs found that their search discoverability is an average of 27% higher than that of traditional content. For some newsrooms, this figure is as high as 90%.

Because they perform so well with search, fact briefs punch above their weight in drawing in new audiences for newsrooms, and have high potential to become evergreen content. See examples of newsrooms’ evergreen fact briefs below:

• El Paso Matters: Was El Paso one of the safest big cities in the US in 2022?
• Wisconsin Watch: Did the US debt increase by $7.8 trillion during Donald Trump’s presidency?
• The Nevada Independent: Does higher teacher pay result in better student performance?

A highly dependable editorial product and a complement to investigative reporting

Fact briefs have been shown to have 21% higher median traffic performance than comparable content. This means that newsrooms can be confident that fact briefs (which take much less time to publish) are a sure bet with readers. For newsrooms that have published high volumes of fact briefs for a sustained time, fact briefs see 60-80% more traffic.

Case study: For AZCIR, fact briefs introduced a way for them to publish frequently and keep high volumes of new visitors coming to their site while they worked on their long form investigative reporting.

Case study: Learn more about how fact briefs provided new growth opportunities for Wisconsin Watch.

Newsletters

Fact briefs’ standardized structure makes them ideal for new and different engagement tactics. When the Colorado Sun began publishing their fact briefs, they immediately spotted an opportunity to expand their newsletter offerings. Today, the Colorado Sun fact brief newsletter has over 1000 subscribers and boasts a 74% open rate.

Video shorts

Short fact checks make for great video shorts and audio segments. El Paso Matters saw fact briefs as ideal content inspiration for TikToks and Instagram Reels, which they are leveraging to reach younger audiences. Fact briefs such as, “Is there an unusually high level of lithium in El Paso’s water supply?” generated great engagement with the local community on Instagram.

For Wisconsin Watch, fact briefs were a path to new revenue streams. In 2024, they received a grant from the International Fact Checking Network to expand their fact briefs into video and audio formats.

Quizzes

All fact briefs have a yes or no answer, meaning they are highly suited for quizzes. All newsrooms participating in Gigafact programs have access to a quiz, which can be delivered to audiences in different ways. The Colorado Sun’s fact brief quiz boasts average sessions of 21+ questions. Each quiz also includes space for calls-to-action, meaning they can be leveraged as revenue sources.

Expanded subject matter

Fact briefs offer new ways for newsrooms to engage their readers around the unsubstantiated claims, rumors, confusions, and even urban legends that interest their communities. Ordinarily, newsrooms might not weigh in on a if monsoon rains unearthed an ancient, 8-foot-long Arthropleura, or if the National Guard was being deployed for an eclipse (two very popular briefs!).

With fact briefs, newsrooms have a standard, sober format by which to add the facts to these discussions, all while building trust with their audiences.

Elections and democracy

During 2024, an old misinformation narrative in Arizona resurfaced, claiming that over 10,000 undocumented immigrants voted in 2020 elections. AZCIR published a rebuttal fact brief, which was shared by numerous users on X (Twitter) who were trying to correct the record. This fact brief garnered over 1,000 views from new readers via Twitter alone in the days after it was published.

Local rumors

A viral Reddit thread discussing tollways in Texas included an assertion that all North Texas tollways were owned by a Chinese company. Fort Worth Report decided to investigate, and published a fact brief finding that this was not the case, though the tollways are in fact managed by a Spanish company. Because FWR was responding to a viral rumor, their fact brief received over 21K views, 83% via search. Ultimately, the Reddit user who started the rumor deleted their post. Fact briefs allowed Fort Worth Report to weigh in on the conversation and contribute their knowledge.

The takeaway

These are just two examples of the core mission of Gigafact in action: High quality local publications using their expertise and reputations to dispel misinformation and empower citizens to amplify facts.

Gigafact was founded on the theory that people actually want to know what's true and what's false, and the engagement our partners have seen indicates that we were right. Every day, readers encounter high quality information producers in their region via fact briefs. They leave with more familiarity with their local media and more factual information to guide their civic lives.