Chequeado

We will use the award to reach out to more countries with our learning and open source technology developments, which help to fact-check faster without losing quality and to respond more effectively to the community. With this, we aim to contribute to more societies having access to evidence-based information on time and displayed in formats appropriate for each one. At the same time, the fact-checking movement worldwide grows stronger with more fact-checking organizations working to fight misinformation. 

I am 47 years old Latin American woman and I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a country with a history of several and recurrent political-economic crises, including hyperinflation situations. I am happily married to Nico and I am the proud mother of 3 children, Fermín, Mora, and Tobías. I am a yogi, journalist, lawyer, and teacher at the University of Buenos Aires and other universities as well, and an advocate for access to information and open data.

Ever since I was a little girl I have been very curious, alert, and full of questions, and lies and injustice have always driven me crazy. I consider it a blessing that in Chequeado I have found a role that enables me to combine my passion with my experience in a job that I love.

With the help of an amazing team, I seek to improve the quality of the public debate and to increase the public interest in evidence and open data. Furthermore, I try to change how people are informed and innovate the ways of producing great journalism.

When I started working in Chequeado, public life was polarized between the government and the main media outlets. At the same time, people’s ever-growing distrust of information was fed when official data was not available or if it was, then its quality was often compromised. Although the actual government does not fight so openly with the media, transparency, and openness remain a low priority in the public agenda. This situation is similar in other Latin American countries.

Our main goal is for fact-checks and verified information to not be available only to a circle of well-informed people. So we work in new formats and new narratives and experiment with different online and offline strategies: to involve the audience both in the production of information and in data sourcing and analysis. Our organization has four programs: media, innovation, education, and research & impact.

We want to put all our creativity and the open technology we are developing to the service of people and high-quality information. As mentioned before, lies and injustice have always concerned me ever since I can remember. I will continue to work against them with all my energy and enthusiasm. I know it is more than worth it!

In 2010 Chequeado started to fact-check the public speech of high-profile politicians as well as public sector personalities in Argentina as the first fact-checking organization in Latin America, the first in the global south, and one of the first 10 fact-checking organizations in the world. From the very first moment, our work was disruptive, we bet on transparency, collective knowledge, and collaboration. The same with our colleagues in the world: we do not bet on competition but collaboration and complementarity.

As a pioneer in the field, Chequeado also has developed technology to automatize the fact-checking process. The reason is simple: lies are easy and fast to write and send, debunking and verification require more time and resources. It is an unfair race. 

The main challenge of fact-checking around the world is to bridge the gap between misinformation speed and fact-checking process. For this, it is necessary to create mechanisms to help automate the fact-checking process to better serve our society. The idea is to reduce browsing and sorting time and allow fact-checkers to concentrate their efforts on verification. Also, as the automation tools speed the process, the newsroom workflow needs to be adjusted to maximize the efficiency of the fact-checkers. 

To say that fact-checking can save lives. It may sound exaggerated? Fact-checking is more than a group of journalists making sure that every viral content, high-profile political speech, is based on data and evidence-based information and not speculation. Certainly, fact-checking strengthens public discourse but it is much more than this. 

The social impact of fact-checking has been highlighted in extreme situations such as the pandemic, where misinformation can put the lives of many people at risk. In a scenario of uncertainty, in which scientists need time to provide adequate responses to an unknown virus, the anxiety to feel safe led many to consume information without a scientific basis. Many of the pieces of misinformation offering methods to prevent or cure an infection showed people identified as doctors giving solutions that did not correspond to the severity of the virus. Home and natural remedies promising protection and quick recovery were not slow to appear. Fact-checking brings out the data and the facts. Not everyone changes their mind, but fact-checking creates doubt, reducing their willingness to share. We have learned from COVID-19 that in contexts of virality, any point that interrupts contagion is a winning point for prevention and care.