We at UP Journalism Club (UPJC) seek to uphold our brand of ethical and professional journalism at all times.
We are committed to adhering to the International Fact-Checking Network’s code of principles under the same belief that nonpartisan and transparent fact-checking can empower accountable journalism.
As such, we make our fact-checking and digital verification methods accessible to the public to help them verify and replicate the standards and processes we employ in our fact checks.
Our partners
For the 2025 midterm elections, UPJC is partnering with fact-checking collaborative Tsek.ph, an initiative of academe, media, and civil society that aims to counter disinformation.
The same arrangement with Tsek.ph was done in 2022 through FactRakers, a fact-checking initiative by journalism majors under the supervision of VERA Files cofounder Assoc. Prof. Yvonne T. Chua.
UPJC is also collaborating with community-oriented independent media outfit Fyt in producing short-form videos debunking and prebunking claims ahead of the 2025 elections.
Selection criteria
We spot and select verifiable claims and content based on the following criteria:
- Factual accuracy: Is it objectively verifiable using existing verification tools?
- Relevance: Is it pertinent to today’s public discourse?
- Virality: Has it accumulated a relatively significant amount of engagement? Does it have the potential to go viral?
- Feasibility: Can it be fact-checked within a reasonable amount of time?
Our fact checks depend on the claims our team can spot from both online and official events such as forums, town halls, debates, and sorties, among others. We also rely on claims we receive through our tipline.
Our readers may reach out on our official social media handles or email us via eb@upjournalismclub.org should they have spotted posts that can be verified.
Rating options
Our fact-checking team follows Meta’s rating options for its third-party fact-checkers. These are:
FALSE: Content that has no basis in fact. This includes:
- Fake quotes
- Claims that are impossible, or that could not be considered an interpretation of something that actually happened or was said
- Conspiracy theories that explain events as the secret work of individuals or groups, which may cite true or unverifiable information but present an implausible conclusion
- Fabricated content from websites misrepresenting themselves as real news outlets
- Image, audio or video content that is authentic but offered as proof of a separate event (i.e., false context)
ALTERED: Image, audio, or video content that has been edited or synthesized beyond adjustments for clarity or quality, in ways that could mislead people about something that has no basis in fact. This includes media that is digitally created or edited through the use of artificial intelligence (AI). It also includes splicing media together, but not media excerpts (see ‘missing context’ rating), presenting media in a false context (see ‘false’ rating), or media where the digital creation or editing method is not itself misleading but the media includes a false claim (see ‘false’ rating). This does not include media with transparency using one of Meta’s AI labels or Meta’s AI watermarks or non-Meta transparency methods that clearly convey the use of AI, though a post may be eligible for another rating if it includes a claim separate from the use of digitally created or edited media. This definition includes:
- Manipulated or transformed audio, video, or photos
- Synthetic image, audio, or video, including media created using artificial intelligence:
- Media edited to omit or reorder the words someone said to reverse the meaning of the statement
PARTLY FALSE: Content has some factual inaccuracies. This includes:
- Inaccuracies or miscalculations regarding numbers, dates, times, but that could be considered an interpretation of something that actually happened or was said
- A mix of true and false key claims, where the false claims do not predominate
- Content presented as an opinion but based on underlying false information
MISSING CONTEXT: Content that implies a false claim without directly stating it. This includes:
- Clips or excerpts from authentic media that hasn’t been altered (see “altered rating” definition) or presented in a false context (see “false rating” definition), but distorts the meaning of the original content to imply a false claim. This does not include clips of authentic politician speech (e.g., text quotes, video clip) (see Politician definition)
- Reporting on a false claim made by a third-party without questioning the veracity of the claim.
- Use of data or statistics that implies a false conclusion
SATIRE: Content that uses irony, exaggeration, or absurdity for criticism or awareness, particularly in the context of political, religious, or social issues, but that a reasonable user would not immediately understand to be satirical. This may be from sites not clearly labeled as or widely known as satire, or presented without clear labeling.
TRUE: Content that contains no inaccurate or misleading information.
Corrections policy
In the spirit of accountability, readers may promptly message us on our social media handles if they spot errors in our fact checks or reporting. Upon careful verification, we will issue an erratum with the corrected information prominently placed above the original article and/or post.
Copyright license
Our fact checks are covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.
UPJC’s fact-checking methodology and corrections policy have been reviewed and approved by VERA Files cofounder Assoc. Prof. Yvonne T. Chua, who teaches fact-checking at the UP Diliman College of Media and Communication.