From Fact Checking to Content Moderation Inside a Newsroom Faced with Generative AI

In 2022 we embarked on an ethnographic study of 35 fact checkers and editors at one of Europe’s key fact checkers institutions . Using both traditional and innovative ethnographic methods, we gained insight into the practices, perspectives and attitudes towards fact checking as a field. From the granular tasks of content labelling and list making, to the everyday personal relations between this small group, over the two years we conducted the research, we came back to the office three times. We had become familiar faces in the fact checking office, not quite friends, but not strangers either. Our relationships with the fact checkers balanced professionalism and closeness, where they wanted to remain loyal to their contracts and office relationships, but also, to tell their story, to tell us about the ways they push on through a changing AI and misinformation landscape, but also, the fears for the field as a whole. In this chapter, we outline some key findings from our study and present it as an ethnographic case.