Demagog.cz is legally registered as an association with the explicit purpose of fact-checking and related activities. Information about the association and its structure are listed on the website at: https://demagog.cz/stranka/o-nas .

Link to public register: https://or.justice.cz/ias/ui/rejstrik-firma.vysledky?subjektId=938169&typ=PLATNY

As evidenced on the website and in the Czech register of legal entities, I can confirm that Demagog is a standalone non-profit organization, whose main purpose is “fact-checking of political debates“, “media literacy education“, “development of civic society and democracy“ and “promoting principles of accountability“.

1) Demagog.cz was publicly launched in February 2012 for the purpose of fact-checking public political debates. Back then, there was no media organization explicitly dedicated to fact-checking in the country and we (largely students from Brno, Czech Rep.) felt that there was need to publish independent fact-checks for debates during elections and even for those happening each week on TV.

For the past 9 years, our mission has remained the same: provide the public with unbiased information, point out falsehoods and misleading claims, and educate young people, not least our student interns, on how to find and use sources of data.

2) Who currently works (mostly volunteers) at Demagog.cz:

5 editors

16 analysts, mostly interns, out of whom 2 manage our social media accounts

9 analysts-proofreaders

3 IT specialists

2 coordinators

3) Besides fact-checking, we:

a) run workshops on fact-checking and media literacy,

b) promote fact-checking during various public gatherings,

c) maintain political promise trackers,

d) are developing a tool for teaching media literacy in schools,

e) cooperate with Facebook to fact-check widely shared content,

f) work with AI developers to research and develop automated tools for fact-checkers.

4) We have expanded our focus somewhat over the past year, fact-checking content on social media, incl. a partnership with Facebook, joining a European consortium to combat misinformation, and working with AI researchers to develop tools for fact-checkers. Over the coming year we mostly need to increase our personnel capacity to be able to fully carry out all these activities. Although our numbers have not increased so far, we are already expanding the contract hours of our existing employees and increasing the number of paid analysts/interns.

1) Looking at the available data from the Internet archive Wayback Machine, it is clearly visible that the website started operating in 2012 (screenshot 1), with the first content appearing since March and already focused on the topic of fact-checking (screenshot 2).

2) Currently, the website of Demagog lists 39 people involved in the project, which is actually more than the 35 people the Applicant has mentioned (maybe the list of team members has not been uopdated recently?).

However, all members of the Board are listed on the website as well as other team members and volunteers. The entry of each team member shows his position and a short bio – a large majority of the team members are still active students.

Several team members list their other professional commitments, no apparent conflict of interests was identified (e.g. working for a political body or business known for its connection to politics).

3) Demagog actively offers media literacy workshops on its website. The last photo evidence of such event can be identified on Demagog`s FB page and it is from April 2018, however, the annual report from 2019 also lists several places where workshops took place.

It would seem logical that the covid-19 pandemic has infuenced workshop organization to a large degree, an information on potential online educational activities would be welcome (if the exist).

The activity of promotion of fact-checking is clearly visible even online.

The project of political promise trackers has also ben suffciently documented in the annual reports.

The cooperation with Facebook is also mentioned on the website.

All our fact-checks are listed directly on our website: https://demagog.cz with some publications containing fact-checks of a number of claims made during the same speech, interview or debate.

To find past political fact-checks, you can switch pages at the bottom of the list. For lists of fact-checks of particular politicians, parties, topics etc., go to https://demagog.cz/vypis-recniku or https://demagog.cz/vyroky or use our API ( https://demagog.cz/stranka/api-pro-vyvojare ).

An Excel file with past fact-checked political statements is attached.

Besides fact-checking politicians, Demagog.cz works with Facebook to fact-check and label widely shared Facebook content: https://demagog.cz/spoluprace-s-facebookem

Looking at the provided data with all fact-checked statements, the activity of Demagog regarding the number of fact-checks has been in my opinion sufficient.

Overall, 865 statements were fact-checked in 2021, with an average of 25 fact-checked statements per week.

There were several weeks (especially during the summer months), specifically 7, that do not have a fact-checked statement.

However, the data suggests that the time measure corresponds to the source release date of the statements otself rather than daily records of Demagog`s activity, therefore it is probable to assume that the work is on-going at all times regarding fact-checking activitiy.

Looking at the available data with all fact-checked statements, the database contains the contents of each statement. A potential idea for improvement (and further analysis) would be to add a column to the database categorizing each statements within a certain topic (economy, environment, social, taxes) or identifying a list of keywords to be highlighted.

NOTE: Interestingly, the topics are assigned to certain fact-checks on Demagog`s website but not as a part of the Excel database.

Inspecting the data manually, virtually all statements relate to the public sphere as most statements come from politicians or other publicly known figures. The most current and hevaily fact-checked statement topics include green energy and the enviornment, infaltion, taxes, electricity costs, and of course, the covid-19 pandemic.

Furthermore, using a randomized sample of 30 fact-checked statements, I manually assigned topics to each fact-check based on the contents of the statement. Using this randomized sample, this further supports the notion that virtually all fact-checks relate to topics of public interest, with economy being the most frequent topic, followed by covid-19, social issues, EU affairs and the environment.

We accept no funding or donations from political parties or politicians.

In 2021 Demagog.cz joined a national hub established under EDMO, a European Commission project intended to coordinate and support fact-checkers around Europe. As part of the project the Commission will provide financial support for Demagog's fact-checking activities.

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/european-digital-media-observatory
https://fsv.cuni.cz/en/news/central-european-digital-media-observatory-cedmo-will-be-located-faculty-social-sciences
 

As stated, no donation from a political body or other state actors was identified in the list of transactions of Demagog`s transparent bank account.

The Applicant has attached an article describing the organization`s involvement in the new Central European Digital Media Observatory (CEDMO) project. Pending the project status, I would recommend its description and the volume of funding to be published on the website as there is no information about this on the website at this point.

Our financing is described on our website: https://demagog.cz/stranka/jak-je-projekt-demagogcz-financovan

As for the EDMO project mentioned for Criteria 1.5., the hub is only just being set up and no EU financing has been received so far. Over time, we will devote a section of the website to a description of the project, its activities and financing.

As mentioned above and suggested by the Applicant, the information on the funding received in the context of the CEDMO project will be published on the website once the Applicant receives funding.

As the funding to be received from the Euroean commission relates to the CEDMO project and not the fact-checking/general activity of Demagog itself, editorial independence should be maintained.

The fact-checks listed below, most of which cover multiple statements, illustrate that whether we are checking statements made in an interview, in a tweet or a Facebook post, we apply the same basic approach:

1) Identify the various interpretations of the claim and their broader contexts;

2) Present data, ideally based on primary sources, and link to sources whenever they are available online;

3) Determine whether there is a reasonable interpretation of the claim that is supported by available data. If not, the claim is false;

4) If the claim is true, determine whether, when put into context, the claim does not lead the listener/reader to a false conclusion. If it does, the claim is misleading.

Inspecting the provided statements and their assessment, it is evident that Demagog has been working on its methodology and gradually improving it for years. Virtually each assessment`s logical argumentation is supported by multiple sources (legislative documents, official statistics, other relevant research on a given topic) and is put into perspective and context, especially with respect to statements that are assessed as “misleading“ or “false“.

The same approach is applied to statements regardless of the politicial affiliation of a given speaker.

Even with respect to cases where a certain bias could be potentially expected, e.g. the current (and highly controversial) Prime Minister Andrej Babiš talking about the salaries of teachers and its comparison with the previous political representation, Demagog does the most to stay objective and concludes its assessment of this statement that even when accounting for a slight difference in the specific numbers being quioted, the crux of the statement is true and therefore it is assessed as such.

Furthermore, the assessments and their contextualization show the thought process of the fact-checker in the sense that usually the primary source statistical (or other) data is inspected and then follows an explanation of how the data could or could not be interpreted, confirming compliance with the criteria that evidence should dictate the outcome of the assessment.

In my opinion, the professionalism of Demagog`s methodology is apparent and is therefore clearly compliant.

While we employ no strict formula to ensure balance, we make sure that politicians from all parliamentary parties are covered in our publications, with an increased focus on those in executive positions. During election time, we cover all parties with significant levels of support. Our primary focus is on interviews and debates or debate segments, from which we simply draw all factual statements and check those regardless of perceived importance.

https://demagog.cz/stranka/jak-hodnotime-metodika

Looking at the available statement data, the distribution of fact-checked among political parties seems quite logical, with the main government party ANO2011 in lead with 217 fact-checked statements in 2021.

The other heavily fact-checked parties include the othewr governmental party ČSSD (Social Democrats) and the main oppoistion parties – Civic Democrats (ODS), Communists (KSČM), the pirate party (Piráti) and far-right party Svoboda a přímá demokracie (SPD).

The high no. of fact-checks attributed to the party Strana práv občanů stems from the fact that this is a party of the current Czech president Miloš Zeman.

Interestingly, no fact-checked statements have been attributed to the Czech Green Party which has very little support in the country, but as explained, Demagog focuses on fact-checking political debates and as such its fact-checking activity is also then influenced by the selection of debates guests by the various national public or commercial media.

Analyzing the provided fact-checks and the random sample selected by the Assessor, one thing that I really like is how Demagog puts the topic/statement being fact-checked into proper context through official data, secondary research (sometimes conducted by private organizations, e.g. Deloitte) or other sources.

However, Demagog does not usually describe the source of given information. Regardless, I asssess the organization as compliant with this criterion as the analysis of the randomized sample did not point to an instance of using a source where its own interests could influence the outcome of the fact-check.

The ony identified commercial relationship Demagog has relates to its work as a fact-checking organization for Facebook. This is, however, clearly stated on the website and no instance of where this relationship could influence the fact-checks was identified.

Looking at Demagog`s assessments, they do not show any bias towards any political viewpoint or a specific policy position. Likely attributed to the fact that the team has been active for years, developing its methodology and sourcing, and with the same personnel leading the organization, high standards regarding objectivity of the assessment and the argumentation based on data is evident.

Our code of ethics includes non-partisanship as one of the primary principles. Both employees and volunteers are required to disclose membership in political parties or political youth organizations and are barred from working in Demagog.cz if they become members or become employed or volunteer for such an entity.

https://demagog.cz/stranka/eticky-kodex-demagogcz

As evidenced by the Applicant. the code of ethics of the organization strictly prohibits working for Demagog and being politically affiliated at the same time. The code clearly lists that any politically affiliated must be reported and lead to the termination of the given staff member`s role at Demagog.

For puproses of the assessment, I have analyzed 100 Facebook posts of Demagog`s Board members (4 people) as they have the ultimate editorial power.

Each post was labbelled as either containing or not containing political content (posts promoting Demagog`s activities were labelled as not containing political content). Furthermore, if the posts were labelled as having political content, potential bias presented was assessed.

Overall, only 20 of the 100 posts were labelled as having political content, most of which were shared articles about international politics (especially Donald Trump). While a potential bias was identified in 3 out of the 100 posts, this bias was only associated with US politics and is not relevant for Demagog`s activities (and it also dates back several years to when Trump was still president).

To sum it up, no clear political favoritism or bias concerning the eading figures of Demagog was identified. 

Demagog is very thorough with providing sources of data releated to each fact-checked statement. These sources often include official statistics or other figures and the fact-checking often includes a contextualization of a statement where it could have been, wither deliberately or not, slightly twisted and therefore labelled as either misleading or false. Where available, Demagog always provides links in its fact-checks to online source so the fact-checking process can be replicated if desired.

Demagog frequently uses primary sources such as official government documents, statistics or reports, either at national or international level (mainly EU).                                                                                                            

The fact-checks of Demagog often compare more sources when they are available. For example, in quite frequent cases where one politican talks about another politican`s statements from the past, Demagog tries to identify multiple potential statements of the politician whose statements are being mentioned in the fact-checked statement, and evaluates which of these was likely the subject of the current fact-checked statement.

In its assessments, Demagog often puts the effort to provide a detailed contextualization of not only the fact-checked statement itself, but also the overall topic that the statement is associated with. Using my randomised sample of fact-checks, I have not identified an instance where the interests of a given source could indicate bias, with large majority of the sources used being official statistics or documents.

A potential bias could be expected when using sources such as media articles or other secondary sources. In this sense, Demagog does not provide a background of each secondary source it uses, however, I believe the provided contextualization is sufficient and the source backgroud would need to be dealt with in cases where it would be the only or one of very few sources of the fact-check, however, such sources usually make up only a small part of the argumentation as on average, a fact-check of Demagog contains 12 different sources.

Demagog.cz is an independent organization, legally a registered association.

Record in public register: https://or.justice.cz/ias/ui/rejstrik-firma.vysledky?subjektId=938169&typ=PLATNY

As confirmed looking at the official Public Registry data, Demagog is a standalone organization whose main activity is fact-checking.

The website dedicated to financing highlights the main donations received in the last several years, with an added link to the organization`s transparent bank account. A large portion of the financing is provided by small donors via different platforms.

Financial information on our website: https://demagog.cz/stranka/jak-je-projekt-demagogcz-financovan

Our accounts are not audited, the accounting requirements for our association are limited, but all financial transactions made and received by Demagog.cz are listed on our "transparent account" available to the public.

On its website, Demagog clearly describes how its funded (grants. small donors), lists several of the biggest donations in recent years and also provides a link to its transparent bank account with all the transactions listed. This area of Demagog`s transparency has been notably improved in the last several years taking into account also my recommendations from previous assessments.

The legal form of the organization is clearly speicified as non-profit.

One slight improvement I would, as assessor, appreciate, woiuld be to keep a csv/excel database of all the transaprent bank account transactions so they could be easily analyzed in the case of re-applying.

Section "Spolek Demagog.cz" at https://demagog.cz/stranka/o-nas

The website lists all team members of Demagog with their respective positions.

It is clearly described that the main editorial control rests with the organization`s statutory body, its Board comprising currently of 4 members. 

Section "Kdo připravuje Demagog.cz?" at: https://demagog.cz/stranka/o-nas

The website lists 39 members of the organization`s team including their short biographies.

Potentially, some of the bios, e.g. of the organization`s Board members and its editors, could be more detailed, naming specific organizations/institutions where the given team member has worked (e.g. with respect to the chief editor Jan Fridrichovský, the bio only states that he worked as an analyst in the public sector, but not stating the specific workplace).

I could even imagine attaching their CVs to their profiles or at least their link to LinkedIn (in several cases this is provided).

With respect to the lowest-level team members, most of which are still active students, the short bios are sufficient in my opinion.

Our contact page lists the email address and phone number of the project coordinator, plus a general team contact for any requests and queries to the organization: https://demagog.cz/stranka/kontakty

Users can also get in touch with us on Facebook via direct messages or comments: https://www.facebook.com/Demagog.CZ/

We encourage users to contact us when they find incorrect information in any of our fact-checks, if they are aware of additional data sources or if they simply have a suggestion on who and what to fact-check: https://demagog.cz/stranka/mam-vyhradu-k-hodnoceni-nebo-navrh-na-overeni-kam-se-mohu-obra

As described by the Applicant, Demagog invites its audience to reach out to the organization and its team via its website and published contact info or through Facebook.

Our methodology: https://demagog.cz/stranka/jak-hodnotime-metodika .

A specific of Demagog.cz is that we largely focus on debates, speeches or interviews and their segments and fact-check all factual statements made during their course. Over the past 9 years we have checked on average more than 100 claims each month (our current average is around 60) and many more during election campaigns. As a result, we have not found it practicable to contact the speakers in reference to each claim. Rather, we communicate with them and their offices when we are unable to find sufficient sourcing for an assessment of their claim.

Demagog quite thoroughly describes its methodology on the attached website. The described specifics of the fact-checking activity and communication with politicans` assistants and offices seems logical as the need for communication arises primarily in situations when sufficient sourcing was not identified.

As stated elsewhere, Demagog focuses primarily on fact-checking political debates. By nature, the organization then logically focuses on national highly publicly visible debates, discussions or interviews, where the statements that are presented have a high potential to reach a large audience/part of the public. 

In several identified cases, Demagog looks at multiple interpretations of a given fact-checked statements, including the underlying data or assumptions.

Looking at for example a fact-checked statements related to the Prime Minister talking about a Pirate Party member František Kopřiva and his statements about the housing crisis and approaches to real estate taxation, Demagog identifies multiple sources of Kopřiva`s statements, comments on his public activity by the party leader, and evaluates these against how the Prime Minister has interpreted these statements in his own derogatory statement. While there is evidence, that Mr Kopřiva has expressed some potentially controversial ideas (e.g. evidence for truthfulness of the statement of the Prime Minister), Demagog also provides evidence that the party line, expressed also by its Chairman Ivan Bartoš, is different and does not follow statements made by a lower-level member of the party without any significant roles within it. In the end, the second evidence prevailed and the Prime Minister`s comments were then labelled as False.

Using the randomized sample of fact-checks, I have selected numerous claims by leading politicians from parties across the political spectrum and can confidently state that Demagog`s methodology or use of sources does not change based on the fact-checked speker`s identity or political affiliation.

As stated, Demagog is in touch with numerous politicians or their offices and contacting them with respect to cases where their statements (or parts of those) the organization was unable to verify.

For verification, I have chosen a sample of 10 fact-checks of Demagog labelled as unverifiable and insoected the assessment. In 6 out of 10 cases, Demagog has made the effort to contact relevant sources (politicians, institutions) in its efforts to assess a given statement properly, therefore I am assessing Demagog to be compliant with this criterion.

We encourage readers to make suggestions on who and what to fact-check on our website: https://demagog.cz/stranka/mam-vyhradu-k-hodnoceni-nebo-navrh-na-overeni-kam-se-mohu-obra .

We used to host a web-based platform called "Ověř to", where fans could suggest claims to check and vote on which ones should be prioritized. The platform was discontinued after a few years due to low public interest and the fact that most of the claims submitted were not factual.

While we receive a number of suggestions over email, few if any contain claims that are current and factual. On the other hand, we are increasingly focused on claims made on social media and receive suggestions via tweet, Facebook comment etc. This type of audience interaction is still relatively new for us and posts on social media represent a small percentage of our work.

As provided, Demagog clearly invites its audience to send claims to be fact-chgecked, temporarily even going beyond the standard open call with its web-based platform “Ověř to“.

However, over the years it has become clear that the audidence its not as much interested in sending claims to be fact-checked itself

Corrections page on our website: https://demagog.cz/stranka/mam-vyhradu-k-hodnoceni-nebo-navrh-na-overeni-kam-se-mohu-obra

Demagog has a separate website dedicate to its corrections policy, clearly outlining how the audicence can challenge/question its fact-checking activity.

Demagog has a fairly detailed corrections policy published on its website. The policy esentially has 4 major steps:

1. Demagog is informed by anbyody from the audience about a possibvle error.

2. New information is analyzed thoroughly.

3. based on the analysis, the fact-check assessment is adjusted (or not).

4. If the assessment was changed, a correction is published right next to the part of the fact-check with the original error.

In the last 2 years, Demagog has made 15 corrections in total. All corrections are listed on the corrections policy website with a link to the original and corrected fact-check.

Over the past 12 months we received 8 correction requests which resulted in changes of assessment, mostly by providing additional information related to a statement that we had considered unverifiable. Correction requests have lately took the form of Facebook comments, sometimes by the speakers themselves arguing for the veracity of their claims, to which we respond using the same means while applying our standard corrections process.

Examples of recent corrections (short note within each fact-checking article):

https://demagog.cz/vyrok/20576

https://demagog.cz/vyrok/20418

https://demagog.cz/vyrok/20194

All corrections are clearly and visibly marked in a given fact-check. Since the fact-check argumentation is often quite long and thorough, Demagog places the correction notification right next to the passage of the fact-check where an error was made.

Section "IFCN" at https://demagog.cz/stranka/o-nas

Demagog actively invites its audience to contact IFCN should they believe its principles have been violated.

Not Applicable

This criterio does not apply to Demagog.cz as it is a standalone fact-checking organízation.