Fact-checking – not simply reporting accurately what people say but investigating, and reporting on, the accuracy of what they say – has been around for a while. It is said by most to have developed as a major force in the United States in 2004 with the creation of the website Factcheck.org, followed a few years later by Politifact.com. In the recent years, it has spread to Africa and Latin America, two regions where lack of trust both in politicians to tell the truth and in traditional media to report it are endemic, writes Peter Cunliffe-Jones, founder and director of Africacheck, Africa's first fact-checking website, and deputy director of the AFP Foundation.