Facebook's Partnership With Fact
SHAHANI
AARTI SHAHANI  BYLINE: Factcheck.org is  as the name spells out  a fact-checking nonprofit. It's based at the University of Pennsylvania and is 1 of 5 partners Facebook featured when it rolled out the initiative in December 2016.
SHAHANI: That's FactCheck director Eugene Kiely. Facebook  one of the largest companies on earth  is meticulous when rolling out new products. Current and former employees have told NPR about the way engineers pore over code for live video or messenger  making sure it lives up to the promise and troubleshooting very  very quickly. But in this case  there wasn't even a budget line for months.
SHAHANI: He used the money to hire Saranac Hale Spencer  who had previously worked for a legal newspaper covering federal courts and then a Gannett paper in Delaware. She says this job is definitely different.
SHAHANI: How does it feel?
SHAHANI: Here's how her work day starts. She logs into Facebook and goes to a special dashboard. It shows links users have flagged as fake news ranked by popularity. So Spencer has a sense of what's getting a lot of attention. A few days ago  just before Tuesday's Senate election in Alabama  she saw fake news stories about candidate Roy Moore trending.
 SHAHANI : The story said two women who accused Moore of pedophilia were caught lying.
 SHAHANI : Spencer and her team found that  contrary to the fake news claims  there was no MSNBC interview or any TV interview record for that matter. And the picture in the article was actually of a British reality TV star just after a very painful pregnancy.
SHAHANI: It takes Spencer about one full day of work to debunk the fake news. She submits her fact-checked article to Facebook on the eve of an election the entire country is watching. Clearly  this is important work. But that's separate from whether or not the work has an impact. I ask a question about her fact-checking article  to which director Eugene Kiely responds.
SHAHANI: You're not given that feedback?
SHAHANI: Meaning Facebook does not tell the fact checkers how many times their work product reaches users compared with how many times the fake news reaches them - could be 1 to 2 or 1 to 10 or 1 to 100 000. Facebook says that's proprietary data not for outsiders  even partners  to know. Factcheck.org and others in this partnership have asked Facebook for more transparency. But even if he's kept in the dark  Kiely says  he knows there is a reach.
SHAHANI: In this way  the fact-check project exposes an ongoing question. Seasoned journalists in newsrooms are torn about whether participation with Facebook  in fact checking  in sharing content on news feed  in live video is grabbing a seat at an important table or giving cover to a broken relationship. A Facebook spokesperson says the fact checkers are valuable to the company  and Facebook will provide them with additional tools and metrics in the new year. Aarti Shahani  NPR News  San Francisco.
AARTI [TGT]  BYLINE: Factcheck.org is  as the name spells out  a fact-checking nonprofit. It's based at the University of Pennsylvania and is 1 of 5 partners Facebook featured when it rolled out the initiative in December 2016.
[TGT]: That's FactCheck director Eugene Kiely. Facebook  one of the largest companies on earth  is meticulous when rolling out new products. Current and former employees have told NPR about the way engineers pore over code for live video or messenger  making sure it lives up to the promise and troubleshooting very  very quickly. But in this case  there wasn't even a budget line for months.
[TGT]: He used the money to hire Saranac Hale Spencer  who had previously worked for a legal newspaper covering federal courts and then a Gannett paper in Delaware. She says this job is definitely different.
[TGT]: How does it feel?
[TGT]: Here's how her work day starts. She logs into Facebook and goes to a special dashboard. It shows links users have flagged as fake news ranked by popularity. So Spencer has a sense of what's getting a lot of attention. A few days ago  just before Tuesday's Senate election in Alabama  she saw fake news stories about candidate Roy Moore trending.
 [TGT] : The story said two women who accused Moore of pedophilia were caught lying.
 [TGT] : Spencer and her team found that  contrary to the fake news claims  there was no MSNBC interview or any TV interview record for that matter. And the picture in the article was actually of a British reality TV star just after a very painful pregnancy.
[TGT]: It takes Spencer about one full day of work to debunk the fake news. She submits her fact-checked article to Facebook on the eve of an election the entire country is watching. Clearly  this is important work. But that's separate from whether or not the work has an impact. I ask a question about her fact-checking article  to which director Eugene Kiely responds.
[TGT]: You're not given that feedback?
[TGT]: Meaning Facebook does not tell the fact checkers how many times their work product reaches users compared with how many times the fake news reaches them - could be 1 to 2 or 1 to 10 or 1 to 100 000. Facebook says that's proprietary data not for outsiders  even partners  to know. Factcheck.org and others in this partnership have asked Facebook for more transparency. But even if he's kept in the dark  Kiely says  he knows there is a reach.
[TGT]: In this way  the fact-check project exposes an ongoing question. Seasoned journalists in newsrooms are torn about whether participation with Facebook  in fact checking  in sharing content on news feed  in live video is grabbing a seat at an important table or giving cover to a broken relationship. A Facebook spokesperson says the fact checkers are valuable to the company  and Facebook will provide them with additional tools and metrics in the new year. Aarti Shahani  NPR News  San Francisco.