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About Us
Factchequeado is an initiative created to counter mis and disinformation within the Hispanic and Latino communities in the United States. An innovative project led by Maldita.es, the first Spanish non-profit fact-checking media created to combat disinformation in Spain, and Chequeado, the first fact-checking media organization in Argentina and the Global South.
Both organizations are characterized by innovation in approaching their audiences, creating proactive communities, fostering collaborative work, expanding journalist’s networks and developing civic technology.
They united forces in 2021 to draw on their proven experience to fill a gap and find a solution for Spanish-speaking communities especially vulnerable to mis-disinformation. This is a community of 60 million Hispanics and Latinos living in the U.S., which by 2030 will represent more than 20% of the country's population.
As a result, it has become fundamental to produce fact-checked content in Spanish especially aimed at these underserved communities to limit the impact of mis and disinformation by collaborating alongside fact-checking organizations and local media outlets to facilitating their access to verified information through Spanish speaking media in the U.S. and the different platforms they use for news consumption and sharing.
What we do
Factchequeado is:
- A digital medium of mis-disinformation verification that creates open-source original Spanish content, available on various platforms and social networks.
- A collaborative alliance with large and small Latino media and fact-checking organizations aimed at increasing the focus on these underserved communities.
- A One-on-One community, providing crowdsourcing tools to educate and learn about the informational needs of the different Hispanic and Latino communities in the US, while respecting their language and culture.
- A space for training on fact-checking tools and fighting disinformation for U.S. journalists, with a clear focus on Hispanic journalists.
- An innovation lab to fight disinformation that will develop new formats through experimentation and exploration of new technologies.
- A database for academics interested in investigating disinformation in Spanish in the United States.
Factchequeado fact-checks the mis and disinformation circulating on social networks and mass media through quality journalism.
We listen to our audience's needs and focus on platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, and other news outlets, to help citizens know whether the content they receive is accurate, false, based on little or no evidence, or lacks context.
We use investigative and data journalism tools, images, and video verification techniques, which any citizen can learn, to help our community make decisions based on facts, not gossip, rumors, prejudice, or speculation.
Learn with us: training opportunities
We believe that journalism is a service of public interest, and as such, it must be of quality, transparent, innovative, and collaborative.
We believe collaboration with citizens, with local media that help us hear first-hand the relevant issues of the communities, and with the large press -national and international- that follow the public agenda is essential for our denials and fact-checks to go further.
We can all learn to verify information! At Factchequeado, we offer educational tools so that citizens can check the content they receive and avoid sharing unverified content and thus increasing the problem of disinformation.
If you are interested in Factchequeado's training program and knowing more about our educational tools, please reach out to us at [email protected]
Become our partner
At Factchequeado, we believe that journalism is a service of public interest, and as such, it must be transparent, innovative, and of high standards of quality, but above all collaborative.
One of our premises is impact: we want more and more people to have access to verified information and the tools to identify and check if what they consume is true or false, lacks evidence, or needs a better context.
To achieve this, we partner with other media in Spanish and English in the United States, large and small, allowing them to publish our verified quality content for free, in innovative formats, and have access to our educational and pedagogical tools.
In that collaborative synergy, our allies help us understand their communities, their priorities and their needs, which allows our team of talented journalists in the United States to identify the stories and the issues to monitor.
If you are interested in being an ally of Factchequeado, please write to [email protected]
Our Team
Tamoa Calzadilla. Editor in Chief, Miami, USA
As editor in chief for Factchequeado, Tamoa is responsible for the production of original content at Factchequeado, as well as the exploration and implementation of creative approaches to better serve the U.S. Spanish-speaking community. Former Director of elDetector, Univision Noticias fact-checking platform. She has led live digital-TV fact-checking coverage, and alliances with other media, organizations and universities to combat disinformation that mainly affects latinos. Pulitzer Prize Finalist for the collaborative work #FinCenfiles (2021) on corrupt Venezuelan politicians and international banking acting as leader for the the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). She was also part of the investigative team of the Panama Papers (ICIJ, 2016). She has been appointed Honoris Causa María Moors Cabot from Columbia University, and distinguished with the Gabriel García Márquez Honors and IPYS AWARD for Best Research, together with the team she led in Venezuela, in 2014. She’s also winner of the Ipys/Transparency International award for best coverage of corruption in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Rafael Olavarría. Fact-checker. Atlanta, USA
Rafael began his career at CNN en Español as a writer, associate producer, and breaking news anchor, among other roles. He then worked as a multimedia journalist at Univision Atlanta, where he led the fight against misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. Between 2021 and 2022 Rafael won 11 Southwest Emmy Awards, including Daily News Best Reporter both years. Rafael graduated with a degree in International Studies from the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. He is also a guitarist, singer and songwriter, and although he has been away from the stage for years, he never misses an opportunity to participate in karaoke.
Isabel Rubio Arroyo. Science fact-checker. Madrid, Spain.
Editor at Maldita.es, a non-profit outlet fighting disinformation. Her main tasks are clarify concerns and explain contents prone to misunderstandings using scientific literature and with the help of experts that give context and information. She also writes about Science, Technology and Health in the Spanish newspaper El País.
Natalie Van Hoozer. Media Partnerships Manager, Reno, Nevada, USA.
Natalie Van Hoozer is an independent journalist and translator in Reno, Nevada. She works as a contributing bilingual reporter and the community engagement coordinator for KUNR Public Radio, the NPR member station for Northern Nevada. She is also the U.S. representative for SembraMedia, a media nonprofit for which she researches independent, digital, Spanish-language media organizations across the country. Previously, Natalie was an Online News Association MJ Bear Fellow and a Solutions Journalism Network LEDE Fellow. She is an alum of the Fulbright program in Argentina.
Olivia Rivarola. Social Media & Comms Manager, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He studied Journalism because he wanted to tell stories by, but it
She has a degree in Social Communication from the University of Buenos Aires and specializes in digital marketing and social media. She worked in different agencies and companies managing the entire Social Media circuit, from creating content to measuring metrics for its optimization, growing audiences, and publicizing small, medium, and large projects. In addition to her passion for the digital world, Olivia herself did her thesis on gender misinformation and for years has collaborated with Chequeado, co-founder of Factchequeado.
Now, in Factchequeado, she was able to join both passions.
Laura Zommer. Cofounder, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Laura Zommer is the co-founder of Factchequeado and general director of Chequeado, the first fact-checking organization in Argentina, Latin America, and the Global South. She is also the creator of LatamChequea, the largest regional fact-checking network, which brings together more than 30 media organizations across 15 countries to fight disinformation and lies in public discourse. She is a Knight ICJF Fellow, a board member for SembraMedia and La Silla Vacía (Colombia) and also a member of the advisory board for the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and Género & Numero in Brazil. For her work as a journalist, she has received more than half a dozen awards, including the Gabriel García Márquez Award in the “Innovation” category from the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericana (FNPI).
Clara Jiménez Cruz. Cofounder, Madrid, Spain
Clara Jiménez Cruz is the co-founder of Factchequeado and CEO of Maldita.es, a Spanish foundation and nonprofit news organization created to fight disinformation and lies in public discourse through fact-checking and data journalism. Maldita.es develops tech tools that enable citizens to make informed decisions. The Maldita.es team also engages with its audience through new formats, such as its Whatsapp fact-checking chabot, which won the European Press Prize in 2020. After a decade-long career as a TV journalist, Clara, who works regularly with national media organizations in Spain, was appointed to the High Level Group against Disinformation by the European Commision and is a current member of the International Fact-Checking Network Advisory Board. Among other recognitions, she has been awarded a 2019 Ashoka Fellowship and was named Spanish Young Journalist of the Year in 2020.
Sebastián Lanaro. Project Leader, Chequeado. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Sebastián is responsible for leading and managing software and web development projects as well as infrastructure management. His main objective is based on obtaining improvements and advances in the area of automation, analysis and data processing. He began his career studying Electronic Engineering and working in the area of design and development of hardware for industrial automation. He dedicated himself fully to IT project management, where he has led infrastructure, networking and software development projects using PMI® standards as well as ISO standards.
David Fernández. CTO, Maldita.es. Madrid, Spain.
Responsible of conceptualization and development of tools and systems against disinformation from an innovative perspective and the maintenance of the technological infrastructure of Factchequeado. Former developer of mobile apps for companies in Spain and Panama.
Funding
Quality journalism, like what we create at Factchequeado, is expensive. We need funds to produce information based on the best available evidence and present it in a timely manner and in formats that resonate with the community.
Creating a network of media organizations, training journalists, empowering citizens, and building a community of Hispanics and Latinos to counter mis- and disinformation in the U.S. is possible with funding from donors, in addition to Chequeado and Maldita.es financing their respective contributions to Factchequeado.
We are committed to operating with a diversified funding model, which guarantees our sustainability and autonomy. We are also committed to being transparent about who finances and supports us.
We want to thank the Google News Initiative, which offered us our first grant to launch Factchequeado. Additional thanks go to the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation, which awarded Factchequeado with a $80,000 prize to combat medical and health misinformation claims, with a focus on those that are trending on WhatsApp. With support from the Knight Foundation ($150,000), we are also working on the project: “Spanish-Language WhatsApp Misinfo Intervention - Staffing: Support fact-checker staffing at Factchequeado to combat Spanish-language misinformation on WhatsApp around the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.”
In collaboration with Mediawise and The Poynter Institute, we have trained Hispanic journalists in the fight against disinformation in Spanish. These organizations financially supported their respective trainings.
As of April 2022, Factchequeado Cofounder Laura Zommer is also a Knight Fellow with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), which provides economic support for her work with Factchequeado. As of September 2022, Zommer also receives support from ICFJ’s Disarming Disinformation program.
In 2023, with the support of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), we provided a virtual training for pediatricians and other key stakeholders to combat health mis- and disinformation affecting Latino and Spanish-speaking communities. Special thanks to AAP for financially supporting this training.
In collaboration with IJNet and Chequeado, we are also developing a toolkit to support journalists working on Spanish-language election coverage.
Factchequeado was also selected for the NYC Media Lab’s AI & Local News Challenge, which provides us with support to improve monitoring of Spanish-language disinformation in the U.S. using Chequeado’s “Chequeabot” technology.
Between January and August 2023 Factchequeado also receives the support of the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation to pilot a collaborative video-centric project to counter Spanish-language mis- and disinformation on health and science topics.Thanks to an Institucional Fellowship from the Reynolds Journalism Institute, Factchequeado’s Editor in Chief Tamoa Calzadilla is developing a practical guide to support the fight against mis- and disinformation impacting Latino communities in the United States.
If you want to financially support Factchequeado, reach out to our co founders at [email protected] and [email protected]