Colombiacheck is a project conceived and developed by Consejo de Redacción (CdR), a Colombian NGO that promotes investigative journalism in Colombia. This project was launched in June, 2016 (https://consejoderedaccion.org/), and it is currently the only media outlet exclusively dedicated to fact-checking in Colombia.

In our website we clearly declare that CdR is the organization behind our work: https://colombiacheck.com/sobre-nosotros.html (see article and footer).

Here you can find documents that certify CdR's legal registration:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Y_MY2zGNplYCj3rPT_NTdvkthm13RbL/view?usp=sharing

Set up in 2016, Colombiacheck is a news organization devoted to fact-checking and debunking of missinformation. It is a project launched by Consejo de Redacción, a legallly registered non-for-profit news organization in Colombia, composed by independent journalists and media scholars.

https://colombiacheck.com/chequeos

Over the three months (Mar.-May. 2019) considered for this assessment, Colombiacheck has published nearly a hundred fact-checks, resulting on an average of one report per day, around seven per week. On the period assessed, there has been no week without at least one fact check published.

During the first year of Colombiacheck, we focused only in fact-checking statements related to the peace process that Colombia was conducting with the guerrilla Farc. In that period, our commitment was to check claims from all the stakeholders of that situation. Once negotiations finished, we moved our attention to 2018 presidential and congressional elections. We have published the bulk of our content after that period and we have widen our scope and dedicated more time and resources to check viral messages on social networks, media and other web pages, about a larger number of subjects, all relating to the public sphere in Colombia.

Still, we emphasize political discourse and give special attention to that related with the implementation of peace agreements. Currently, our main focus is to check statements from (or critical of) all political parties facing regional and local elections to be held in October this year.

Like our declaration of principles states (https://colombiacheck.com/metodologia), we do not select the claims to check with any ideological preference.

Also, when developing the fact-checking process, we turn to a variety of sources that guarantee a plurality of points of view, and we make sure to analyze all the collected data before finally rating the statement.

Below are ten examples.

During the peace process:

1. Government:

https://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/santos-dos-de-tres-frente-a-de-klerk.html

2. Guerrilla:

https://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/consulta-plebiscitaria-no-tiene-efecto-juridico-alguno-el-efecto-es-politico-timochenco.html

3. Opposition: https://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/nadando-en-coca.html

During elections

4. Four fact-checks to Congress candidates from different parties, ranging form right-wing to a former guerrilla member:

https://colombiacheck.com/index.php/chequeos/chequeos-express-candidatos-la-camara-por-bogota

5. Right-wing candidate for president: https://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/ivan-duque-basa-propuesta-de-campana-en-informacion-falsa.html

6. Left-wing candidate for president:

https://colombiacheck.com/index.php/chequeos/los-argumentos-falsos-del-fraude-que-denuncia-petro

After elections

7. New Government: https://colombiacheck.com/index.php/chequeos/duque-exagera-el-numero-de-cosechas-de-coca-que-se-producen-anualmente-en-colombia

8. Opposition: http://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/aida-avella-escribio-un-trino-inexacto-sobre-la-ley-de-financiamiento

Fake news:

9. http://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/el-mocho-franklin-y-el-mocho-kiko-no-son-la-misma-persona

10. http://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/es-falso-que-petro-vaya-demandar-duque-por-decreto-de-dosis-minima-ante-la-corte-penal

Since the beginning of its fact-checking service, March 2016, Colombiacheck has focused mainly on national politics, without leaving aside a number of other topics, such as social issues, economics and environment. Occasionaly, it also fact-checks reports on international issues. In front of all these issues, Colombiacheck does not unduly concentrate on one side of the question analyzed; on the contrary, it strives to provide unbiased and accountable information, in order to allow their users to get a clear and contextualized understanding of the issues.

Our internal regulation (CdR's statute) states that "The associates must declare the conflict of interests between their professional functions and the objectives and activities of the organization, inform of any situation that goes against the principles of CdR and announce when they stop exercising the journalistic profession": https://consejoderedaccion.org/asociados/registrarse

Also, Colombiacheck's code of principles declares that "We do not defend any ideology, nor do we carry out political activism or of any other type": https://colombiacheck.com/metodologia.html

When hired, our journalists commit to follow both principles.

Colombiacheck has a clear and sound policy to avoid partisanship, expressed in a fully disclosed code of principles. It enforces their journalists and associates to declare any conflict of interests prior to doing fact-checks, preventing them from covering issues in which they are personally or institutionally compromised. Colombiacheck has not ever supported a candidate in any election nor advocate or take partisan positions on any issues.

Our source policy and code of principles, made public in our website (https://colombiacheck.com/metodologia.html), state:

“Colombiacheck will not use anonymous sources. The sources will be identified and cited. In addition, whenever possible, links to the original documents will be included in our articles so that the data is accessible. We will describe the route of the check (how it was done), to make the journalistic exercise transparent. Thus, any reader who wants to reproduce a check and find the original data, can do so and come to the same conclusion.”

(...)

“Once a statement is selected, we go to the person who said it and try to find out the original source of the data he/she used. We then try to access that original source directly and consult others to corroborate its validity and explain its relevance and impact. If this is not possible to access the original source of the data, the check is made through alternative means: documents (reports, studies, statistical compilations, public and private files) and interviews with experts. In case any of the sources used to contrast the checked data belong to a political group or has a relevant ideological position, it will be explicitly mentioned.”

Editors have the responsibility to guarantee that every check is made following these and all other principles.

Colombiacheck consistently backs the fact-checks with links to reliable sources of data. In the  frequent cases when fact-checks refer to social media updates, these updates are not only linked but also embedded in the fact-check, so that users can easily access them. The use of anonymous sources in fact-checks is forbiden by the code of principles.

The source of our funding is clearly stated in our “About Us” section:

https://colombiacheck.com/sobre-nosotros

Colombiacheck is a not-for-profit, non-governmental news start-up, owned by a non-partisan organization composed by Colombian journalists and media scholars. On its website it fully discloses information about its ownership and current funding scheme. In 2019, Colombiacheck gets 70% of its funding from National Endowment for Democracy, Deutsche Welle Akademie and Facebook. The rest of funding comes from its own activities (25%) and a financial suppot from Javeriana University (5%).

https://colombiacheck.com/sobre-nosotros 

Colombiacheck provides detailed, clear and easy-to-reach information about the board and staff members. Their biographies are published at the Consejo de Redacción's website, accessible from Colombiacheck's 'About us' (Sobre nosotros) page.

https://colombiacheck.com/contact/feedback

Users can easily contact Colombiacheck through different means, such as a contact form, different social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram...), and staff members' emails, which are openly disclosed. 

https://colombiacheck.com/metodologia

Inspired in the Argentinean fact-checking organization Chequeado, longtime signatory of the IFCN Code of Principles, Colombiacheck's fact-checking methodology is sound and reliable. It is consistently applied and clearly disclosed on its website.

Our readers can submit claims or contribute with new data or information about our stories, by emailing us or contacting us through social network, as explained here:

https://colombiacheck.com/sobre-nosotros

They can also write to us at our social media profiles:

http://twitter.com/colcheck

http://facebook.com/colombiacheck

https://www.instagram.com/colombiacheck/

Or they can send us a message at our WhatsApp for Business profile: +57 322 8523557

As mentioned in the assessment of criterion 4c, Colombiacheck allows users to send claims and corrections through different means of contact.

https://colombiacheck.com/metodologia

Colombiacheck invites users to send claims and corrections through different means of contact. In case a mistake has been notified, Colombiacheck commits itself to responding to claims in less than 48 hours.

1. https://colombiacheck.com/index.php/chequeos/actualizacion-no-hay-consenso-de-que-el-de-2019-sea-el-aumento-real-mas-significativo-del

2. https://colombiacheck.com/chequeos/la-tabla-exagerada-sobre-las-victimas-del-conflicto-armado-por-gobiernos

Where a correction had to be made to fact-checks, Colombiacheck has provided a detailed correction in that same page, even highlighting the update in the headline of the report. However, it does not fully comply with the requirements of this criterion, as it has not a public page listing all the corrections made. We kindly invite Colombiacheck to fix this minor detail.