This week Wisconsin Watch marks four years since we published our first Fact Brief in partnership with Gigafact. We call this effort the “fight for facts.”
Since then we’ve produced nearly 700 short yes/no responses to surprising or dubious claims we spot in the infosphere. The goal is to combat the rising tide of misinformation by helping the public find reliable information about a range of topics.
For those four years our reporters have mostly been the ones hunting for potential misinformation.
But thanks to a new partnership with the Center for Media Engagement, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization at The University of Texas at Austin, we’re experimenting this election season with a new tool that invites the public to flag possible misinformation.
The crowdsourcing tool is called Truth Sleuth, and it provides our fact-checking team a dashboard to investigate claims submitted by the public. We’re particularly interested in spotting and debunking false claims related to the election, like false information about polling locations or election dates.
Here’s an overview of how you can participate:
How do I submit a report?
Head to the Truth Sleuth website and create a free account.
Log in and click the “Report” button.
When asked “Which agency would you like to report to?” choose Wisconsin Watch.
Follow the step-by-step instructions to categorize your submission and share the information.
Once you hit submit, we’ll receive your report and look into it.
What kind of information do I submit?
In general, you can submit any information that seems questionable. Our Fact Briefs are based on claims we find “surprising or dubious.” Not all of the claims we check are false, though we try to prioritize those.
You can submit a link to the source or a detailed description of what you saw. You can also submit a photo if, for example, you spot misinformation in one of those campaign fliers that will be stuffing your mailbox this October.
Nothing is too insignificant — if you have doubts about it, chances are other people do too.
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