Content Analysis of 400 Fact-Check Articles Published by 6 Major UK and US Fact-Checking Organisations, 2024

We conduct a content analysis of fact-check articles published by six major fact-checkers from the UK and US. Our analysis builds on existing content analyses of fact-checking content and empirical studies of the epistemic practices of fact-checkers by focusing on the claim types checked, issue identified, arguments advanced, and verdicts reached by the fact-checkers in our corpus. We find that the fact-checkers in our corpus predominantly check claim types and content that can in theory be verified, but that they occasionally check claim types that cannot be factually verified. We also find a great diversity in the issues identified with claims and the arguments advanced to substantiate assessments. Some of these issues and arguments are consistent with a ‘verification model’ of fact-checking, whereas others are more consistent with distinct epistemic approaches to fact-checking that we term ‘argumentative’ and ‘interpretivist’. Decisive false verdicts are the most common verdict reached in our corpus, and they are regularly reached for some claim types that are not factually verifiable. Our study contributes to debates about the epistemology of fact-checking by producing evidence on the extent to which fact-checkers check non-verifiable claims and on the varied types of epistemic work undertaken by fact-checkers.