# Independent fact-checking organizations exhibit a departure from political neutrality

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.19498 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.19498/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 28 Jul 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Show Me the Work: Fact-Checkers' Requirements for Explainable Automated Fact-Checking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09083/) (2025)
- [Counterspeech the ultimate shield! Multi-Conditioned Counterspeech Generation through Attributed Prefix Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.11958/) (2025)
- [CommunityFact: A Dynamic, Multilingual, Multi-domain Benchmark for Misinformation Detection in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.30241/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Independent fact-checking organizations have emerged as the crusaders to debunk fake news. However, they may not always remain neutral, as they can be selective in the false news they choose to expose and in how they present the information. They can deviate from neutrality by being selective in what false news they debunk and how the information is presented. Prompting the now popular large language model, GPT-3.5, with journalistic frameworks, we establish a longitudinal measure (2018-2023) for political neutrality that looks beyond the left-right spectrum. Specified on a range of -1 to 1 (with zero being absolute neutrality), we establish the extent of negative portrayal of political entities that makes a difference in the readers' perception in the USA and India. Here, we observe an average score of -0.17 and -0.24 in the USA and India, respectively. The findings indicate how seemingly objective fact-checking can still carry distorted political views, indirectly and subtly impacting the perception of consumers of the news.