Fact-checking, Public Policy and Information Disorder

Please join the Westminster Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), Peter Cunliffe-Jones and Prof. Jean Seaton for a seminar on fact-checking, forecasting and information disorder.

Location: University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus (Room MG14).

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Details

Long-range weather forecasts, though not always accurate, help farmers better protect their crops from the effects of droughts or floods. Understanding the potential long- and short-term consequences of misinformation could help protect society from events misinformation affects, like the 2024 Southport riots or public health crises. However, accurately predicting the way that individuals and groups may respond to different forms of information, true or false, is notoriously challenging. In this seminar, Peter Cunliffe-Jones will discuss the theoretical model set out in his new book - 'Fake News - What's the harm?' The model is being trialled this year by fact-checkers and researchers in the UK, the EU and the Middle East to distinguish between factually false claims that do, and do not have a substantive potential to cause or contribute to specific substantive consequences, or harms.

To apply the model in practice, fact-checking organisations and researchers use a tool built around around three core questions set out in the book. These relate to (i) the relative degree of falsity of a claim, (ii) the number of people needed to act to cause a particular effect, and (iii) the capacity and motivation of those who hold a particular false understanding to act in a way that would cause this specific consequence or consequences. In the mid-1970s, the eminent British statistician George Box wrote that "all models are wrong, but some are useful". If the model is fundamentally wrong, or misapplied, it could hamper either the efforts to counter harmful misinformation or the right to free speech. If it is right and well applied it could do the opposite. The seminar will discuss the criteria by which these judgements can be made and the challenges involved.

Biographies

Peter Cunliffe-Jones is a visiting researcher at the University of Westminster, focused on the nature and effects of fact-checking, regulation and the effects of misinformation for individuals and society. His most recent book, Fake News – What’s the Harm? was published by University of Westminster Press in June 2025. Before joining Westminster as a visiting researcher, Cunliffe-Jones had a 25-year career as a senior news journalist and editor at the AFP News Agency in Europe, Africa and the Asia-Pacific. He reported on the wars in Bosnia and Croatia in 1995, was bureau chief during the end of military rule in Nigeria (1998-2002) and AFP chief editor for Asia-Pacific (2003-2006). In 2012, Cunliffe-Jones founded Africa’s first non-partisan fact-checking organisation, Africa Check, setting up offices in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal. In 2017, he launched the Africa Facts Network which today supports 50 organisations across the continent.

Jean Seaton is Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster and the Official Historian of the BBC. Since 2007, she has served as Director of the Orwell Foundation, succeeding Sir Bernard Crick. She is the author or co-author of many influential books, most recently Guardians of Public Value: How Public Organisations Become and Remain Institutions(Palgrave, 2021), and most recently the ninth edition of Power Without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain (Routledge, 2025, co-authored with James Curran). She has also written widely on the history and role of the media in politics, wars, atrocities, the Holocaust, revolutions, security issues and religion as well as news and journalism and is particularly interested in the impact of the media on children. She has contributed to policy debates and formulation especially concerning public service content and freedom of speech.