Peter Cunliffe-Jones, Laura Zommer, Noko Makgato and Will Moy run fact-checking organisations in South Africa, Argentia and the UK respectively. They say we should not underestimate the scale of the threat that misinformation and declining trust pose, or the complexity of their causes. “But the problem is not nearly as intractable as many people seem to believe. By addressing not only the symptoms of misinformation and mistrust, but also the systemic problems that underlie them, fact-checking organizations, media, government, and business can resist these worrisome trends.”

In recent years – mainly due to Trump’s 2016 election thanks partly to Russian dissemination of fake news and propaganda – fact-checking has become a fast-growing journalistic movement that has gained clout and influence. It has also attracted criticism and heightened scepticism, with fact-checkers coming under attack, facing accusations of bias in an era in which partisan politics has become highly emotional. It is an allegation that the neutral journalistic format is supposed to avoid.

The authors point out that politicians and journalists from Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia met at the Global Conference for Media Freedom in London in July, and “they acknowledged that the rise of misinformation has contributed to declining public trust in politicians and the media.”

There is also the Global Fact-Checking Summit (Global Fact) - a premier conference dedicated to political fact-checking worldwide. Global Fact is organised by Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network and has been held every year since 2014. The first two conferences were held in London, and the respective ones in Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Rome.

In the age of fake news, many people distrust media. It is perfectly healthy to question what is being said, which is the feature of an intelligent and independent public. Fact-checkers have a certain mission and their “work can play a powerful role in countering the effects of misinformation and restoring faith in reliable sources.”

The authors say, “fulfilling this duty requires, first and foremost, a comprehensive understanding of the challenges we face. Most of the world’s almost 200 fact-checking organizations operate on the assumption that presenting the public with corrected information will generally convince them to update a false view.”

However, simply focusing on “tackling false information” is not enough. It is also important to identify “sources of reliable information” while making readers and followers aware of them. Nowhere is a more ideal place to teach people how to identicy false or misleading claims than in schools and other educational platforms.

However there is a difference between bias and fake news. Bias does not have to be an inclination toward the left or right, but rather toward reaffirming the worldview of an insular establishment, as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky pointed out in Manufacturing Consent. Nathan Robinson, editor of the Current Affairs says there is no such thing as a neutral journalist. Everyone has certain moral instincts and points of view, which do colour our interpretations of the facts sometimes.

The best way to avoid the accusation of being biased is to acknowledge where we come from and where we stand. If we can reveal an awareness of our own political leanings, it actually makes our views more trustworthy than if we are in denial about them. In other words there is nothing wrong with media bias, as long as we are honest about our opinion, and do not pretend not to have a point of view at all.

Transparency and “efforts to improve public access to reliable information” would be a good start to rewin the public’s trust. Helping people to see journalists as their allies instead of as duplicitous, faux-neutral propagandists would render fact-checking superfluous.