We are registered as a non-profit civil association. Objective: fact-cheking journalism

Set up legally in May 2019, Cotejo.info is a Venezuelan non-profit news organization devoted mainly to fact-checking, investigative reporting and debunking of missinformation. It embraces also some additional connected activities, such as training programs for journalists. Cotejo.info is a project launched by independent journalists and media scholars. The applicant has provided document proof of its legal entity.

https://cotejo.info

Over the three months (Sept.-Nov. 2019) considered for this assessment, Cotejo.info published 16 'brief fact-checks' (cotejos breves), 3 'deep fact-cheks' (cotejado a fondo), 1 regional fact-check (cotejos regionales) and 1 'diaspora fact-check' (cotejo diáspora); that is, a total amount of 21 fact-checks over a period of 13 weeks. Athough this amount meets the requirement of an average of at least one fact-check per week over the past three months, the truth is that there have been several weeks without any fact-check published. In order to fully comply with the criterion 1b of the IFCN Code of Principles, Cotejo.info editors are invited to observe a more systematic publishing cycle. They are also invited to organize their fact-checks in a more structured and archive.

We have an editorial team. We define the topics to be treated under the fact-cheking methodology. The work is done by a journalist and reviewed by two other people before publishing.

https://cotejo.info/2019/11/ministro-evo-morales-foto-bolivia-vzla/

https://cotejo.info/2019/10/vzla-ejemplo-democracia/

https://cotejo.info/2019/10/tecnologia-4g-5g-vzla/

https://cotejo.info/2019/09/delcy-rodriguez-onu/

https://cotejo.info/2019/09/panama-buque-venezuela/

https://cotejo.info/2019/08/desnutricion-venezuela/

Since the beginning of its fact-checking service, Cotejo.info has focused mainly on the troublesome national politics of Venezuela, without leaving aside sometimes other topics such as social issues and economics. As Venezuelan journalists work under hard pressures from the Government, which have been repeatedly denounced by international organizations such as the Inter-American Press Association, the applicant shows in its fact-checks a critical position against the autoritarian leaders of Venezuela; however, it does so by providing thoroughly backed and accountable information. Nevertheless, the fair journalism of Cotejo.info could be strengthen by checking additional statements of the opposition leaders.This has been barely done so far, which lead us to assess this criterion as partially fulfilled.

In our statutes we define ourselves as an association of independent journalists. We have no ties with political organizations and none of the journalists has political ties

Cotejo.info has a clear and sound policy to avoid partisanship, expressed in a fully disclosed code of principles (Principios editoriales). Despite its critical position against the abuses of Venezuelan government, Cotejo.info has not ever supported a candidate in any election nor advocate or take partisan positions on any issues.

In Cotejo.Info we verify the public discourse. We use public speeches as raw material to apply the journalistic methodology of fact verification. All sources of contrast we use are public. We have a public set of journalistic principles and ethical values.

Cotejo.info consistently backs the fact-checks with links to reliable sources of data. It can be highlighted that providing reliable background to news is a particularly difficult task in Venezuela, where many public issues suffer a lack of trustworthy statistics or independent sources.

Cotejo.Info works as a partner financed by Medianalisis (www.medianalisis.org). Medianalisis financing comes from the United States, but because the Venezuelan government punishes this type of financing, our decision is not to make it public for security reasons.

In its 'about us' page (Quiénes somos),the applicant discloses that it has been promoted by Asociación Civil Medianálisis, a non-profit association commited to media freedom in Venezuela. However, it does not disclose the origins of the fundings of both non-profit organizations. In support of their decision, applicants argue security reasons: a full disclosure of the fundings could lead to punishment from Venezuelan government. Although these circumstances are understandable, all in all, a bit more clarification would be advisable in this section.

In each article there is a bio of each author and his photograph. Here are two examples:

https://cotejo.info/2019/10/vzla-ejemplo-democracia/

https://cotejo.info/2019/10/tecnologia-4g-5g-vzla/

There is also information on the history of the Cotejo.Info and a public list of its work team:

https://cotejo.info/nosotros/

https://cotejo.info/nuestra-historia/

Cotejo.info provides detailed, clear and easy-to-reach information about the authors of fact-checks in each news. In addition, a list of the funding and staff members as well as the history of the project are also provided. The information could be improved by providing a brief biography of the members, instead of a simple list of names, in the 'about us' page.

https://cotejo.info/contacto/

Users can easily contact Colombiacheck through different means, such as a contact form and different social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram). Staff members' Twitter accounts are openly disclosed. Nevertheless, several fact-cheks show anonymous authorship, under the name 'Cotejo newsroom' (Redacción Cotejo). In order to strengthen the accountability, we kindly suggest Cotejo.info's editors to refrain from this practice.

https://cotejo.info/metodos-en-nuestro-trabajo/

Cotejo.info's fact-checking methodology is sound and reliable. It is consistently applied and clearly disclosed on its website.

https://cotejo.info/contacto/

The openness of Cotejo.info to readers' claims could be improved. There is just a generic 'Contact' page (Contacto), without any specific indication about the claiming procedure and time of response. The applicant is kindly invited to improve this aspect.

https://cotejo.info/principios-editoriales/

Cotejo.info informs readers about their correction policy (Editorial Policy point 6) However, it does not fully comply with the requirements of this criterion, as it lacks detail as regards the timeframe for the handling of the corrections requests. This aspect should be fixed in the information provided to website users.

We have not received corrections requests. So far we have not detected problems that should be corrected after publishing the article

This aspect is assessed as partially compliant because this assessor has concerns about the reasons why Cotejo.info has not received any corrections requests so far. Of course, this well may be related to the accuracy of the organization in their fact checking methodology. However, according to what it has been pointed out in criterion 5b, this assessor fears that it may also be related to the lack of clarity to submit corrections by the readers. This is an additional reason to kindly request a significant improvement of this aspect to Cotejo.info. Once the weaknesses indicated in 5b is properly fixed, this criterion will be also validated as fully compliant.