Factcheck.bg is the only platform in Bulgaria dedicated solely to fact-checking, an initiative of the Association of European Journalists-Bulgaria (AEJ). 

https://factcheck.bg/en/who-we-are/

AEJ is an NGO registered in Sofia in 2010, the independent Bulgarian branch of a European-wide journalist's assocation which publically advocates on issues of importance to professional journalism and information integrity. 

Please see the attached copy of the legal registration of AEJ-Bulgaria.

Factcheck.bg is a distinct team within a legally registered nonprofit organization (Association of European Journalists - Bulgaria) which supports professional journalism. Factcheck.bg is set up for the purpose of fact-checking and regularly publishes non-partisan reports on the factual accuracy of statements by public figures and prominent institutions or widely circulated claims related to public interest issues. Factcheck.bg clearly indicates on its website its status and its relation to AEJ-Bulgaria.

1. When and why was your fact-checking operation started?

Factcheck.bg started in May 2021 as part of the long-term strategy of AEJ-Bulgaria to improve professional journalism standards and the information environment in Bulgaria. The quantity of mis- and dis-information in Bulgarian media and social media has already surpassed critical levels. Few countries in Europe are effected by the infodemic so adversely. As a partial illustration of the impact of the scarcity of high-quality information, Bulgaria’s vaccination rate is the lowest in the EU (26%) and death rates per capita from COVID are among the highest in the world.

2. How many people work or volunteer in the organization and what are their roles?

The team of Factcheck.bg currently includes nine people: one editor, four journalists, one database expert, one social media manager, one project manager and one partnership coordinator. All work at Factcheck.bg on a part-time basis (see https://factcheck.bg/en/team). We receive additional support from a temporary development advisor (unpaid), one trainee and external journalists from media partners who also contribute content occasionally.

3. What different activities does your organization carry out?

Before the site was launched, AEJ-Bulgaria developed a fact-checking methodology and published a handbook to educate journalists and others about fact-checking and how to conduct independent fact checks (https://factcheck.bg/resources/). AEJ has also designed and conducted fact-checking trainings both in person and online, open to the public, for both individuals and organizations. AEJ organized an open and transparent competition for applicants to join the Factcheck.bg team 

Beside fact-checking, Factcheck.bg organizes regular trainings for journalists, students, activists and others, as well as competitions to promote fact-checking and find new contributors. We are also currently developing a program to train scientists and collaborate on fact-checking.

4. What are the goals of your fact-checking operation over the coming year?

- Grow the community of experts to contribute expertise to our fact checks. 

- Expand the size and sustainability of project finances in order to create full-time permanent staff positions dedicated only to the organization.

- Increase impact by enlarging the capacity and scope of fact-checking operations.

- Increase our capacity to produce more articles.

- Through public engagement and social media, popularize fact-checking and public recognition of the organization and its work.  

The team of Factcheck.bg is set up exclusively for the purpose of fact-checking.

Factcheck.bg has been increasingly recognized by journalists, opinion leaders, experts and the general public as a platform for verifying the facts in Bulgaria. Its efforts are mainly focused towards fighting targeted disinformation campaigns by debunking viral false claims in social networks. For the moment it has been covering comparatively limited number of issues which are on the top the political agenda of EU institutions – Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the Russian influence in Bulgaria, the European Green Deal and its relation to climate change and energy policy. There are less publications concerning specific national political issues, or economic, social and local issues.

Factcheck.bg works within a heated and polarized political environment. Bulgaria is considered to be a flawed democracy according to the Democracy Index 2021 of the Economist Intelligence Unit. It is a financially stable but a low income member of the EU with significant problems concerning the rule of law and corruption. 2021 and 2022 are times of great political turmoil with three parliamentary elections and unstable new reformist government. The media environment has been deteriorating for the last decade. However, examples of influential high quality journalism in the country still exist. 

Factcheck.bg has published a total of 53 fact checks since May 2021, including 31 verifications of individual published claims, 13 articles debunking disinformation campaigns and 9 larger indepth features differentiating fact from fiction in broader topics of significant public interest. Most articles are written in Bulgarian but not all have been translated into English. 

Factcheck.bg published at least one fact-check per week in the reference period. Its publishing activity has been considerably improved in volume for the last six months. Factcheck.bg uses three main distinct fact-checking formats – debunking disinformation campaigns; explaining the facts about a grand issue like the European foreign policy, for example; and fact-checking individual claims. 

A sample of 31 random publications of Factcheck.bg in the assessment period shows that all of them fully comply with the requirement for dealing with issues of public interest. The prevailing focus of the fact-checking publications is the war in Ukraine (after February 2022) and the Covid-19 pandemic (before February 2022). 

Staffed by independent media professionals, Factcheck.bg has no personal or institutional relations with any individuals, institutions or political entities covered in Bulgaria or any other countries.

Or policy and funding is clearly stated here:  https://factcheck.bg/en/transparency-of-funding/

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Transparency of Funding

Our funders play no role in our fact-checking process. Staffed by independent media professionals, Factcheck.bg has no personal or institutional relations with any individuals, institutions or political entities covered in Bulgaria or other countries. Please read about our editorial independence.

Small Grants Program of the U.S. Embassy

Factcheck.bg received support from the U.S. Embassy Sofia Small Grants Program for fact-checking trainings for journalists, students and activists from January - November 2021. The support also covered the organization of a fact-checking competition on the topic: “Human Rights as a Target of Disinformation Campaigns.” The U.S. Embassy plays no role in any of these activities – editorial, supervisory or otherwise – and they are entirely managed and implemented by Factcheck.bg.

European Parliament contract

From May - September 2021, Factcheck.bg implemented the project "DetecDisinfoNet" with funding provided by the European Parliament. The objective was to fund the production and publication of fact-checking on European-wide topics including the pandemic, energy, human rights and foreign policy. All the fact checks published under this grant are clearly marked as such and the European Parliament played no role beyond funding. The editor of Factcheck.bg examines every story assignment for potential conflicts of interest and takes full responsibility for the choice of topics and how they are fact-checked.

Active Citizens Fund

In October 2021 Factcheck.bg started a new project to cultivate a community of scientist fact-checkers and collaborate with Factcheck.bg and its team of journalists. The project is supported by the Active Citizens Fund [ACF] in Bulgaria. Funded by donors Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism and administered by the Open Society Institute - Sofia, the goal of the ACF is to foster civil society development. The grant includes developing a methodology for scientific fact-checking; setting up a system to coordinate fact-checking collaborations between scientists and journalists; fact-checking training for scientists; and the production of fact checks to be published on the site. The project ends in October 2023.

Editorial Independence

The same impartiality applies to relations with our funders. Our sponsors share our concern for information integrity and we are grateful that they support our approach. Yet funders play no role in the choice of claims we check or how they are verified and have no influence over how we work. Factcheck.bg alone has full responsibility for all editorial decisions. The team verifies every claim equally - regardless of whether or not they may overlap or conflict with the interests of our funders.

https://factcheck.bg/en/transparency-of-funding/

https://factcheck.bg/en/work-principles/

The following ten fact checks were published over the last six months under the rubric "Checked." They focus on a claim chosen because it represents some combination of apparent dubiousness; potential social imact of the subject; and significant reach based on the size of the audience. The topics arise mainly according to news cycles -- as determined by media organizations -- as well as the capriciousness of social media trends. The broad mixture of sources and equal treatment of each article shows how Factcheck.bg treats all dubious claims even-handedly - regardless of the source.

In terms of context, Bulgaria is currently experiencing extraordinary political instability, forming its first government after three parliamentary election in the last eight months. The predictable political landscape of most parliamentary democracies -- divided between ruling and opposition parties -- has not existed since factcheck.bg was created in May 2021. 

Despite the almost constant electioneering over the last eight months, the most urgent disinformation pollution of the Bulgarian media ecosystem currently concerns the pandemic more than politics and the claims checked reflect this. Without only 26% of the population vaccinated despite the ready availabilty of vaccines for 18 months, and among the highest COVID mortality rates in the world, Bulgarian media and social media consumers are constantly innundated with disinformation in both mainstream media and social media. 

All the claims have been checked according to the same fact-checking methodology and the findings are all based strictly on the evidence found during the reporting process and written in the same even-handed tone.

https://factcheck.bg/policai-v-parizh-arestuvat-zhena-zashtoto-opitala-da-pazaruva-v-mol-bez-pasport-za-vaksina/

https://factcheck.bg/kakvo-pokazvat-dannite-za-smartnostta-ot-kovid-19-v-angliya-koito-mangarov-razprostrani/

https://factcheck.bg/ne-e-vyarno-che-sa-arestuvani-samoleti-na-szo-praskali-s-koronavirus/

https://factcheck.bg/smazvasht-amerikanski-natisk-varhu-balgariya-zaradi-severna-makedoniya/

https://factcheck.bg/ne-e-vyarno-che-sled-komunizma-balgariya-se-e-klasirala-mezhdu-chetvarto-i-sedmo-myasto-v-pisa/

https://factcheck.bg/szo-zabranyava-na-zhenite-da-piyat-alkohol/

https://factcheck.bg/dozhivoten-imunitet-sreshtu-covid-19/

https://factcheck.bg/ne-e-vyarno-che-vaksiniranite-hora-nyama-da-mogat-da-letyat-sas-samolet/

https://factcheck.bg/ne-v-balgariya-nyama-galopirashta-inflaciya/

https://factcheck.bg/ne-e-vyarno-che-v-evropejskiya-parlament-se-vliza-bez-kovid-sertifikat/

Factcheck.bg does use the same high standards of evidence and judgment for equivalent claims regardless of who made the claim. The selected sample of 20 publications follows the high quality procedure for dealing with the evidence regardless of who is speaking. No loaded or partisan language has been detected in the publications. There has been no unfair treatment of sources with regard to who is speaking.

https://factcheck.bg/en/work-principles/

Factcheck.bg has explained on its website how it selects the claims.

I believe that selecting what to fact-check is a methodological issue of utmost importance. If selection of topics or speakers is distorted by being biased, unbalanced or one-sided, the accuracy of the sources and of the evaluation will not be enough to contribute for a fair fact-checking effort. The selection must be processed in a way that is not affected not only by the political or ideological values of the fact-checkers, owners or donors, but also by the personal biases of the fact-checkers - their selective perception, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning or other normal cognitive distortions of the human condition.

The selection process should also reflect the complexity of the issues it tackles and should not bring additional polarization. Factcheck.bg deals predominantly with two topics – the Covid pandemic (mostly vaccines) and the war in Ukraine. This approach is justified by the great amount of disinformation in Bulgaria and globally concerning these two issues, which is a totally valid argument.

At the same time combating aggressive disinformation campaigns concerning Covid vaccines should not make the platform step into activism or advocacy. To my impression Factcheck.bg sometimes misses the opportunity to create trust, a sense of balance and unbiased attitude.

With the war in Ukraine however the platform is doing better. It predominantly debunks false stories invented by the Russian propaganda but at the same time several articles find that images or data from the Ukrainian armed forces are also not accurate. The platform doesn’t lose direction about who is the aggressor and who is the victim in this war, but at the same time tries to demonstrate the idea for balance and impartiality by choosing different aspects of the complex situation and not taking only one side. This new approach of Factcheck.bg should definitely be encouraged because it brings a feeling of credibility and fairness.

I would recommend that the platform expands its thematic diversity beyond targeted disinformation campaigns and that it includes a fair share of “true” claims.

Although the above mentioned remarks are important for the selection process of Factcheck.bg, the platform has recently demonstrated improvement which should be encouraged. As long as significant number of the fact-checks are not unduly imbalanced, I think that overall the platform meets to a high degree the standard for not unduly concentrating its fact-checking on any one side. 

Please see Impartiality and Integrity https://factcheck.bg/en/work-principles/

Factcheck.bg has declared a policy of non-partisanship for its staff, which is indicated on its website. A randomised sample of the Facebook feeds of key staff figures (including the editor-in-chief Ralitsa Kovacheva) has shown that the staff, as a rule, adheres to the declared policy and is not involved in publishing policy positions in a way that seems biased on issues the organization is fact-checking.

Factcheck.bg has a strictly professional approach to working with sources. All of the publications in the randomised sample use abundant number of high quality (mostly primary) sources, including open data, official statistics, legislation, online tools for verification. There are almost none anonymous sources. Relevant links are provided in a way that users can replicate the inquiry if they wish.

Explaining the context of sourcing is a pattern for Factcheck.bg. The platform always makes judgments upon high quality primary sources. The use of secondary sources is rare - when primary sources are not available, and this is indicated in the publications. 

Factcheck.bg has a pattern to thoroughly inquire into the claims at stake by using multiple sources. Not a single fact-checking publication in the randomised sample includes only one relevant named source. The sources are always multiple and in most cases are indicated with relevant links.   

Factcheck.bg is the factchecking section of AEJ-Bulgaria, an independent NGO registered in a Sofia court in 2010, working exclusively with to improve professional journalism and information integirty. 

Please see the attached copy of the legal registration of AEJ-Bulgaria.

https://factcheck.bg/en/transparency-of-funding/

https://factcheck.bg/en/who-we-are/

Factcheck.bg has indicated accurately its ownership and its legal status. 

https://factcheck.bg/en/work-principles/

https://factcheck.bg/en/team/

Factcheck.bg has explained in details its organizational structure. Editorial control is exercised by the editorial team and mostly by the editor-in-chief Ralitsa Kovacheva who holds the ultimate responsibility. All members of the team working for Factcheck.bg and all the authors of the fact-checks have been identified. 

https://factcheck.bg/en/team/

See: Communication with Readers   https://factcheck.bg/en/work-principles/

See also: Suggest a Claim to Verify  https://factcheck.bg/en/send/

See Transparency of Methodology 

https://factcheck.bg/en/work-principles/

Taking into account the fact that 19 out of 20 articles in the Factcheck.bg rubric “Checked” are marked as either “false” or “misleading”, we can assume that what Factcheck.bg is doing is predominantly debunking false stories. “Apparent dubiousness” is supposedly the main criterion (one out of three) that the platform uses to judge which statement to select for verification, although it considers also the reach and importance of the claims.

Although selecting predominantly false statements is a recognized method of fact-checking, I would highly recommend that Factcheck.bg adjusts its selection procedure in order to include a fair share of “true” statements. This shift will bring more fair balance to the selection process. The other option for Factcheck.bg is to state more firmly in the methodological remarks that it only debunks false claims.

Factcheck.bg often explains the reason for choosing a claim to check – for example, due to its reach in social networks.  

Readers are asked to suggest claims to check. The site states clearly that the only claims which factcheck.bg can check are those presented as facts - not opinions. All legitimate queries, all those sincerely intended to verify a claim, will receive a response with an explanation, including those suggestions which are not found to merit a fact check.  

https://factcheck.bg/en/send/

https://factcheck.bg/en/correction-policy/

also see Communication with Readers

https://factcheck.bg/en/work-principles/

The corrections policy of Factcheck.bg sets out clear definitions of what it does and does not cover, how major mistakes, especially those requiring revised conclusions of a fact-check, are handled. According to the procedure minor revisions are indicated and explained in the fact-check while major revisions require a replacement of the incorrect publication with the correct one and a thorough explanation of the reasons for the revision. The corrections policy is adhered to scrupulously. Several fact-checks have been found to have minor corrections that have been comprehensively explained.

In our seven months of operations we have received only one correction request from a reader. The case involved a minor calculation error. After checking the signal and determining that it was correct we revised the number according to the information the reader sent us. The intervention was marked in the beginning of the article and the whole explanation with the name of the reader, who wanted to be public, was included at the end of the article:

https://factcheck.bg/kakvo-pokazvat-dannite-za-smartnostta-ot-kovid-19-v-angliya-koito-mangarov-razprostrani/

Factcheck.bg is a first time applicant. If accepted, Factcheck.bg will gladly post the IFCN badge on its website and post a link referring complaints about IFCN code violations to the IFCN site.  

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