I recently wrote to a vendor’s public relations person, asking her to fact-check an article written by one of my authors. The results were irritating. Or laughable. Or something. I was tempted to chew her up and spit her out (honestly, you never want to get on my bad side). Instead, I wrote a long mentoring how-to explaining what journalists expect PR people to do when they’re asked for a fact check. Maybe it’ll help you, too.

A fact check is performed to ensure that the author did not make factual errors because we want to publish accurate information. It may be done by the author himself, by his editor, or by a (usually junior) staffer at a publication.

We want you to tell us specifically what is wrong and needs to be adjusted. It’s an opportunity for you to respond, “Oh, there are three of those, not two!” so that nobody has to blush, much less correct the article after it’s been published.

So if my author had miscounted, I would expect you to list the omitted item and ideally to link to a page that details it. Don’t just say “There are three, not two!” and never tell me what the third item is; the idea here is to publish the correct data, not to make the editor or writer go on a hunt.

The ideal way for you to respond would be something like this:

The author wrote:

> There are two methods of torture in the Spanish inquisition: surprise and fear

It should be:

> There are two methods of torture in the Spanish inquisition: surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope. (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf_Y4MbUCLY )

…and if the rest is fine, you don’t need to say anything (other than maybe “The rest is fine!”)

As an aside: If the author got the information wrong, contemplate how he may have done so. Does your website have a page with a feature list? Is it inaccurate?