2026 census: Fact-checking losses continue amid funding pressure, but most projects persist

For the first time in the Duke Reporters’ Lab count, three-times as many fact-checkers closed their doors as opened them last year.

Our tally shows 10 new fact-checking projects in 2025, compared with more than 30 that stopped posting.

And that trend has continued into the first half of this year, with the overall count of fact-checking projects dropping from 441 at the end of 2025 to 437 as of June 1.

One notable departure was longtime fact-checker Glenn Kessler, who took a buyout last July from The Washington Post, which then abandoned its influential Fact Checker column after almost 20 years of publishing.

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