Duke Reporters' Lab
| Duke Reporters' Lab | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Location: | Durham, NC. |
| Type: | Educational and Research Center |
| Top official: | Bill Adair, Director |
| Founder(s): | Sarah Cohen |
| Year founded: | 1993 |
| Employees: | 2 |
| Website: | Official website |
The Reporters' Lab is a journalism research institute at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy. It is a project of the school's DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy and focuses on fact-checking, news media research and analysis, and journalism innovation.[1]
On its website, the Reporters' Lab says: "Our core projects focus on fact-checking, but we also do occasional research about trust in the news media and other topics.[2]
Background
Sarah Cohen, a former database editor and reporter at The Washington Post, founded the Reporters' Lab in 2011. At the time, Cohen was the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University. In announcing the Lab in 2011, she said that it:[3]
| “ | aims to do for modern reporting what photocopiers did in the 1970s, and e-mail, the Web, spreadsheets and databases did in the 1990s. It will go beyond the hype to test, create, commission or apply new methods to make the hard work of original reporting easier or more effective. It will guide reporters to the right tool for an immediate job, from sorting a handwritten government sign-in sheet to finding the contractor’s testimony in the school board meeting webcast.[4] | ” |
Cohen remained director of the Lab until 2013, when Bill Adair took over.[5]
The Lab's website features a list and map of fact-checking organizations from around the world, articles on technological tools that help fact-checkers do their work, and analysis of the theory and practice of fact-checking.[6][7] Duke University's faculty, staff, and students contributed to the analysis articles.
Leadership
As of October 2025, the Lab's website listed the following staff:
- Bill Adair, Director
- Erica Ryan, Project Manager[8]
Work and activities
The Lab has published articles analyzing fact-checking statistics. On June 19, 2025, for example, the Lab published an article summarizing the global fact-checking landscape and claiming the number of fact-checking projects had declined roughly two percent since the previous year. The article included graphs on active fact-checking projects and net new fact-checkers per year, as well as information on the challenges faced by organizations involved in fact-checking.[9]
Finances
The Duke Reporter's Lab is funded through a Duke University endowment.[2]
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Duke Today, "Bill Adair, PolitiFact Editor, Named Knight Professor at Duke," accessed April 5, 2013
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Duke Reporter's Lab, "About the Lab," accessed October 20, 2025
- ↑ Reporters' Lab, "Inauguration," May 16, 2011
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Duke.edu, "Bill Adair, PolitiFact Editor, Named Knight Professor at Duke," April 5, 2013
- ↑ Duke Reporter's Lab, "2025 census: Fact-checkers persevere as politicians, platforms turn up heat," October 20, 2025
- ↑ Duke Reporter's Lab, "Homepage," accessed October 20, 2025
- ↑ Duke Reporter's Lab, "About the Lab," October 20, 2025
- ↑ Duke Reporter's Lab, "2025 census: Fact-checkers persevere as politicians, platforms turn up heat," June 19, 2025
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