Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network and Duke Reporters' Lab to Hold First Conference on Automated Fact-Checking

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., March 28, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network and the Duke Reporters' Lab will host "Tech & Check," a landmark event on March 31-April 1 to explore ways technology can be used to make fact-checking faster and smarter.

The international conference, at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, will bring together experts from journalism, academia and the tech industry, including IBM Watson, PolitiFact, the Qatar Computing Research Institute, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Google, National Geographic, NBC and many more.

"Technological advances are creating newer, faster and more efficient ways to fact-check claims made by politicians and government officials," said Poynter President Tim Franklin. "This is the first conference of its kind that combines technologists, academics and journalists to improve fact-checking methods. As we've seen in recent months, modern political campaigns move instantaneously on social media and cable news. It's vital for citizens in our democracy that fact-checking of politicians move at a rapid pace."

"Tech & Check" will examine current research that automates fact-checking, the promise of live fact-checking and automated annotation, and the institutional challenges of expanding automated work.

"Computer scientists and journalists around the world are doing some really exciting work into automating fact-checking.  Tech & Check will be an opportunity to learn about those projects and dream big about what can be done in the future," said Bill Adair, Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University.

The conference is made possible with support by the Park Foundation and Google News Lab.

About The Poynter Institute
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a global leader in journalism education and a strategy center that stands for uncompromising excellence in journalism, media and 21st century public discourse. Poynter faculty teach seminars and workshops at the Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., and at conferences and organizational sites around the world. Its e-learning division, News University, www.newsu.org, offers the world's largest online journalism curriculum in 7 languages, with more than 400 interactive courses and 330,000 registered users in more than 200 countries. The Institute's website, www.poynter.org, produces 24-hour coverage of news about media, ethics, technology, the business of news and the trends that currently define and redefine journalism news reporting. Poynter also is the home of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), more than 60 fact-checking organizations around the world that fact-check claims by politicians, public officials, journalists and others. The world's top journalists and media innovators come to Poynter to learn and teach new generations of reporters, storytellers, media inventors, designers, visual journalists, documentarians and broadcast producers, and to build public awareness about journalism, media, the First Amendment and protected discourse that serves democracy and the public good.

About Duke Reporters' Lab
The Reporters' Lab explores new forms of journalism, including fact-checking, which is growing around the world, empowering democracies and holding governments accountable, and structured journalism, which creates new forms of storytelling and beat reporting.

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