{"id":6130,"date":"2022-05-02T08:56:47","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T12:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/?p=6130"},"modified":"2022-05-04T21:31:38","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T01:31:38","slug":"washington-post-fact-checker-sal-rizzo-visits-hunters-journalism-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/2022\/05\/02\/washington-post-fact-checker-sal-rizzo-visits-hunters-journalism-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post Fact-checker Sal Rizzo visits Hunter\u2019s Journalism Program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Stella Chu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sal Rizzo speaks to the Hunter journalism students. Photo by Stella Chu.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, April 6, Washington Post reporter and fact-checker Salvador Rizzo came to Hunter to talk about the spread of misinformation and his new book, \u201cDonald Trump and His Assault on Truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rizzo talked about how he channels his inner Agatha Christie when he fact-checks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A visual representation of Trump\u2019s falsehoods.<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“The most important thing I can tell you about how to write a fact-check is to write it like a whodunnit,\u201d Rizzo said. “The fact-checks get super complex and you want to make the information digestible to the reader,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not a dry news reporter writing on the front page with no view. Here you\u2019re writing a Sherlock Holmes caper,\u201d said Rizzo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rizzo was a reporter and deputy editor of The Washington Post Fact Checker from 2018 to 2021. Before that, he spent more than seven years covering New Jersey courts and politics and Chris Christie\u2019s governorship and presidential campaign for the state\u2019s major news organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He began his journalism career as a Washington Post copy-editing intern in 2008 and was part of the fact-checking team that received an honorable mention in 2019 for the Robin Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Journalism for The Post’s fact-checking database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rizzo personally fact-checked many of Donald Trump\u2019s falsehoods<\/a>, rating them on a scale of Pinocchios, four Pinocchios being the most false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rizzo also talked about the sheer absurdity of fact-checking under Trump: \u201cIt\u2019s so hopelessly complicated. Trump started talking about people getting murdered in South African farms, so I had to read all these articles in the South African press, and they write in a different way, so it was hard to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not only the people you\u2019re fact-checking that causes problems\u2014sometimes it\u2019s the audience themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOften you\u2019ll find that people complain about things being wrong,\u201d Rizzo said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not wrong, it\u2019s just something they disagree with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked how to combat misinformation in the digital age, Rizzo replied, \u201cTake a news literacy course!\u201d He says people need to learn how to identify good, trustworthy media sources from the bad ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat is one of the most important life skills anyone can have today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Sal Rizzo and his work, check out this Q&A<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tune in to https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu<\/a> for updates on events and other happenings in the Film & Media department at Hunter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stella Chu On Wednesday, April 6, Washington Post reporter and fact-checker Salvador Rizzo came to Hunter to talk about the spread of misinformation and his new book, \u201cDonald Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":6169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepage_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6130"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6175,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6130\/revisions\/6175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}