Take the piece apart and put it back together again to make sure that the names and dates are right, if a writer quote someone, make sure that the quotation that he wrote, he wrote correctly;
Do not hurry up
Use any source available. And it is better to work in a team due the fact checking one piece of work can take all night. Checking the whole article might take weeks or even months
Signs for checking
Look for pieces that are really much more controversial and much less well-formulated
Contact a writer and ask for information
You can ask an author for books, magazine clips, news clips, and phone numbers, notes. Anything that can be a source of information
Notes and calls
Use the notes and call people, because notes can be wrong, just as with everything else.
Calling people that were quoted
If you need to get an information from a person who was quoted and call him, you should not read this qoute, otherwise a person can start sayng something like "This is not what I meant"
Writing someone's words by hand
Don’t actually write down what somebody says, but write down a distillation: keywords, key phrases, sentence fragments
No possibility to write
Spin in your mind the conversation as long as you can get before you can write all down
S-Town
Become a robot
Nothing is obvious until it is explained and supported with minutely marshaled data points
Find two independent sources.
These practices don’t confer metaphysical certainty, but they do constitute a good operational definition of truth
Ask experts
If you check topic related to science, it'd be better to ask some scientists
A pause during a call
This time can be used for checking what was already said
Email messages
It is better use emails for setting up calls, not for asking questions
Wikipedia
It can be used as a background, it has linked studies and researches, which authors you can call
Newsweek
New members
Giving fact checking to intern or junior employee must include training and oversight
Do not rely on authors
Check works on your own and do not rely on authors check their work themselves
Search for mistakes in your work
Few mistakes can be enough for bad consequences, if you spoted them after publication, recall publication
Top journalists
Write thoughts
Write everything you think can lead to something bigger
Start in small company
In the beginning you make a lot of mistakes and it is better if you make them in small newspapers
Write that is interesting to you
After writing this everything else will follow
Circles
Start with information distantly related to a topic and and little by little move to most important
Skills for different formats
You need to be able to tell a story in any format of journalism
Cast you net wide
Think about everything involved, call every person and see what you recieve
List every question you have
During the interview keep coming back to these questions to be kept on track
A report becomes a story
If you have difficulties with writing a story, do the report and the story will write itself
Recieving no's
If you don't get an answer from a person or company, go back and keep asking
Check everything
Double check every fact you recieve from sources
Don't tell secrets
Telling one interviewer's secret to another means you will tell this one's secret to someone to and you will lose trust
Interviewer's diseries
Sometimes they want to tell about something you don't ask, so you should as if there is something they want to share
Publishing classified information
Ask about it who you got it from
Show up in person
Stay away from conversations on phone and meet a person face to face
History of Fact Checking
Dots
Put dots of differend colow above every word: red-reference to book, black-to newspaper, green-uncheckable words