The new millennium has seen the rise and rapid global spread of what can fairly be called a new democratic institution, the independent political fact-checker. The first organisations dedicated to publicly evaluating the truth of political claims appeared in the United States in the early 2000s, The rise of fact-checking sites in Europe report shows.

This report surveys the landscape of fact-checking outlets in Europe, a landscape which is remarkably diverse and fast-changing. The first regular source of political fact-checking appears to have been a blog launched by the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 News in 2005, to cover a parliamentary election. In 2008 similar efforts appeared in France and the Netherlands, and by the end of 2010 fact-checkers were active in ten countries. In all, more than 50 dedicated fact-checking outlets have launched across Europe over the past decade, though roughly a third of those have closed their doors or operate only occasionally.

Read the report here (in English).

Read also about fact-checking in the Czech Republic in an article by Euractiv.cz (in Czech). The Czech fact-checking NGO running the Demagog.cz portal says, for example, that the Czech President Milos Zeman broke already 12 of his pre-election promises. (The presidential office rejected this finding.) 

A fact-checking manual by Evropské hodnoty is available here.