EDITORIAL FACT-CHECKER AND FACT-CHECKER JOURNALIST: TO THE DETERMINATION OF TASKS AND FUNCTIONS

Abstract

The increase in the volume and speed of spread of falsity information, which occurred against the background of technical and social mediatization, became the reason for the emergence of the practice of fact-checking in journalism – establishing the veracity of facts/factual claims already circulating in the media space. In the theory and practice of journalism, the specialists performing this function are called fact-checkers. At the same time, in Western journalism, for about a century, fact-checkers have been known as specialists who carry out a different direction of fact-checking – control of the accuracy and veracity of journalistic text before its publication. Thus, today in the academic literature the same concept denotes two types of fact-checkers working in two close, but not identical, directions of fact-checking. This article attempts to formulate clarified concepts and their definitions for each of the two types of fact-checkers.