On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: pants on fire.

The fact-check is a critical tool in the journalist’s toolbox – and now more than ever, it’s a key part of the job. The problem is that it’s already hard to make the case that definitive “true and false” designations exist anymore… and, it turns out, audiences might be made more suspicious of journalists who fact check, not less.

Randy Stein of Cal Poly Pomona joins Hear Me Out to discuss his new research about debunkings and public trust. 

If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should tackle, you can email the show: hearmeout@slate.com

Podcast production by Maura Currie.

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