The spread of disinformation has increased significantly over the past years, and so
have its countermeasures: among them fact-checking. While the phenomenon of
disinformation is often linked to specific events or media formats, it is a long-term
development, with underlying structural forces that have shaped the US media system
for years: resulting in an increasing segmentation of audiences, a fragmentation of the
media landscape, and today’s highly polarized US society. While all of this poses a
severe challenge to traditional journalism, “fact-checking” has emerged as an effective
weapon to counter disinformation. Together with our experts, we will discuss this
development from a journalistic and an academic perspective – with a focus on the
US, but through a transatlantic lens.