“You are the target”: What it’s like to fact-check a war

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — From Ukraine to Gaza, simmering hostilities have erupted into open wars in recent years, making 2024 one of the most conflict-ridden years since World War II. These conflicts have not only led to a flood of misinformation but also created major logistical challenges for fact-checkers.

Panelists from Sudan, Ukraine, Lebanon, Iraq and the West Bank shared personal experiences and advice on tackling these challenges on Wednesday. Global Fact 11an annual fact-checking conference hosted by Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network, which took place this year in Sarajevo. The safety of fact-checkers during wartime was one of the biggest concerns.

In Ukraine, every family suffered during the war against Russia, whether through the loss of relatives at the front, the loss of communication with friends or the loss of their home by fleeing, said VoxUkraine deputy executive director Svitlana Slipchenko: “We as fact-checkers suffer from all the same things.”

“When we monitor Russian disinformation, we sometimes even encounter Ukrainians’ desire to die by another Russian missile or drone.”

Fact-checking organizations should have evacuation plans ready for their staff, Slipchenko said. While training local journalists in Kyiv, her team made sure the sessions took place in protected areas and reminded participants to ask each other for permission before taking photos. Her organization also plans first aid training for staff to prepare them for medical emergencies.

Organizations must also protect the mental health of their employees. Fact-checkers in active conflict zones work under extreme stress, and even fact-checkers working remotely encounter traumatizing content in their work.

“More than 150 journalists have been killed since October 7. Being a journalist is like being a target,” said Riham Abu Aita, co-founder of the Palestinian Fact-Checking and Media Literacy Platform-Kashif. “They are the target.”

During a war, propaganda is in full swing and obtaining accurate information can be difficult when fact-checkers cannot work on the ground or the communications infrastructure breaks down.

Aws Al-Saadi, founder and president of fact-checking platform Tech4Peace, said that in 2014, when ISIS invaded Iraq, the government blocked access to social media. While fact-checkers tried to circumvent the ban, the government continued to block websites. In 2019, the government shut down the internet after a demonstration.

Istinomjer co-founder Tijana Cvjetićanin (left) and founder and president of Tech4Peace speak during a panel discussion titled “Fact-checking in War” at GlobalFact 11 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Photo: Vanja Čerimagić)

Al-Saadi, who was based in Baghdad, moved to Kurdistan, a region where there was still internet access. His organization brought SIM cards from Turkey and outside Baghdad to transmit information. Large files that could not be transferred via roaming, such as videos and photos, had to be physically transported: “Every day we had a taxi driver who drove back and forth between Baghdad and Kurdistan with a hard drive.”

During a war, governments may try to focus public attention on the conflict as a way to quietly evade scrutiny in other policy areas, warned Layal Bahnam, program manager at the Maharat Foundation. Fact-checkers must continue to play their role as watchdogs, even as they debunk wartime misinformation and disinformation, she said.

Panelists urged fact-checkers in conflict zones to plan ahead. Organizations should have power storage or generators ready in case of power and supply shortages, Slipchenko said. They should also work with journalists outside the conflict zone to develop contingency plans to ensure reporting continues.

Raghdan Orsud, co-founder of Beam Reports, said she was the only staff member outside the country during the 2021 coup in Sudan. She credited the organization’s survival to an Egyptian fact-checking portal that reached out and offered help with reporting.

“If possible, try to register somewhere else,” Orsud said. “Because while my team and family were trying to flee a real war, I was literally trying to find a country from which we could continue.”

Anyone who fails to set up an “agile operation” in time will find themselves in a crisis, Orsud warned.