MENÚ
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.
Felipe Garrán Jiménez. Fact-checker. Madrid, Spain.
He studied Journalism because he wanted to tell stories by, but it was the cameras and microphones that opened the way for him. He entered Guatevisión as a community and red note reporter, then COVID-19 arrived and he dealt with the official information of the Guatemalan Ministry of Health. For nine months the Congress of the Republic was his hunting ground. From daily TV he went on to in-depth reports: drug trafficking, migrant caravans, two hurricanes, vaccinations and the almost celebration of an Olympic medal. He graduated in Journalism and Communication at the Universidad del Istmo, now he tries to understand the Economy at the Complutense University of Madrid. Footballer, very culé and very xeneize. Runner; when he does not write chronicles or stories he is running, not to escape, but to go further.
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. Community Engagement Editor and Partnerships Strategist, 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.
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 the one we do at Factchequeado, is expensive. We need funds to produce information based on the best available evidence and to present it in a timely manner and in attractive formats.
Creating journalistic networks, training journalists and empowering citizens, and creating a community of Hispanics and Latinos to counter mis and disinformation in the US requires a budget that donors together with Chequeado and Maldita.es own funding cover.
We are committed to a diversified financing model, which guarantees our sustainability and autonomy, and we are committed to being transparent about who finances and supports us.
We want to thank the support of the Google News Initiative, which has given us our first grant to start the project and the ABIM Foundation, which awarded our project with an 80,000$ prize to combat medical and health misinformation claims, with a focus on those that are trending on WhatsApp. 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’, with the support of Knight Foundation ($150.000).
In collaboration with Mediawise and The Poynter Institute we have trained hispanic journalists in the fight against disinformation in Spanish. Such trainings have been economically compensated.
Lastly, Laura Zommer, cofounder fo Factchequeado is, since April 2022, a Knight Fellow with the Internacional Center for Journalism and receives economic support for her dedication to this initiative and, since September 2022, also to Disarming Disinformation from the ICFJ.
If you want to financially support Factchequeado, reach out to our co founders at [email protected] and [email protected]