HADLEY THOMPSON, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The third annual PolitiFact workshop for students started up once again at St. Bonaventure University.
Jandoli Institute Executive Director Richard Lee works with PolitiFact Senior Correspondent Louis Jacobson.
A team of 10 students are handpicked to go under training on how to navigate and detect false information that they will work on stories throughout this semester.
“We need students who are good writers who preferably have some experience with campus media or internships working for news organizations. So, what I’ll do is I’ll think of the students that I have had. Or I will ask faculty members to suggest somebody,” said Lee.
Jacobson and Lee provide students with the opportunity to check politicians that goes on the “Truth-O-Meter” which rates statements from true to pants on fire.
Students also produce articles that appear on PolitiFact and PolitiFact New York, the New York edition of the program in a partnership with the Buffalo News.
“A lot of the learning takes place with each story.You are not just doing an assignment for a class, you are working on investigations, and you are working on the same thing that reporters there do,” said Lee
Johnathan Walker, a sophomore sports media major, explained how intensive his training has been.
“We have had three meetings so far. We just got assigned our first fact checks or stories. To start off with, we are working with partners and then; later in the semester, we will work on our own,” said Walker.
Walker thinks that this work he will be doing for PolitiFact will help him later in future endeavors.
He alluded to the idea that even though the projects require a lot of fact checking, you are still interviewing, researching, reporting, writing, all the things you do in any other part of journalism.
“It is getting experience in the journalistic process.The experience of working in a professional setting,” said Lee
The workshop will continue to move forward accurately checking and sorting facts to produce articles with truth to them. Not only providing readers with the facts but providing students with skills they will never forget.
thompsh20@bonaventure.edu
