“Hands-On Fact-Checking: A Short Course” was created by Poynter’s News University and the American Press Institute, and funded by Google News Lab. Designed for college students as a self-directed course or as a resource for classroom instructors, the approximately 90-minute course includes lessons on identifying reliable sources in fact-checking, debunking viral misinformation, and deciding whether a statement is really checkable.

The course opened on April 2, 2018, the date of the second International Fact-Checking Day which highlights journalistic and research fact-checking efforts around the world. This course demonstrates best practices developed and tested by today’s fact-checking journalists, who face particular challenges posed by misleading rhetoric from politicians and government officials and the use of social media platforms as launching sites for viral misinformation.