The International Fact-Checking Network brought together more than 300 journalists and researchers from across the globe this week in Vilnius, Lithuania, for GlobalFact 2026, the 13th annual conference. This essay is adapted from the opening welcome of the IFCN director.
I wasn’t sure what our annual gathering of fact-checking journalists would look like in 2026. Fact-checking has not had an easy time of it lately.
We have been under attack by political players who would shirk accountability for their false messages. We’ve been accused of bias even when we made every effort to be fair and nonpartisan. We’ve watched our business models erode — undercut by AI-generated summaries and monopolistic platforms that profit from attention without investing in accuracy. And we’ve seen our funding streams deliberately choked off by those who understood exactly what they were doing.
Many of us have had to reduce staff. Some had to ask our teams to do more with less — and watched good people burn out under the weight of it.
Our budget for an annual meeting was the smallest it’s been in years. Yet in a time of challenges, we partnered and collaborated to multiply our efforts. In particular, our partner Delfi in Vilnius helped us secure critical support to make our conference bigger and better. Lithuanian National Radio and Television is hosting a day dedicated to investigations. And the European Fact-Checking Standards Network contributed substantial support as a co-presenter. It is no exaggeration to say that Europe is now the heart of global support for fact-checking.
As we planned this conference, we came to know the Lithuanian people — their strength, wisdom and resilience. At a time when truth is under attack in so many places, Lithuania stands as a country and culture that has learned — at great cost — to value truth as a defense against oppression. We have much to learn from them.
In appreciating our friends both new and old, I can’t help but reflect on those not with us today.
Look at who is missing from gatherings like this one. Some of our supporters from years past couldn’t be here because their own budgets were cut — casualties of the same pressures we face. We miss those friends.
Others are absent for a different reason: The political winds shifted, and their support shifted with it. To the technology platforms that are absent from this year’s gathering — truly, we would welcome you back. Rejoin us in the work of making high-quality, accurate information accessible to everyone. Fact-checking is not censorship; it is not a partisan cause. It never was.
This conference exists for collaboration — to find each other, to share what is working, and to face our challenges together.
I’m heartened to find that we are not alone in our commitment to truth and a nuanced view of technology. One of the world’s most prominent religious leaders recently released a major teaching on artificial intelligence. Pope Leo XIV wrote of the current moment in his latest encyclical:
“Our first task is neither to demonize nor idolize technological tools, but to utilize them on the basis of a fundamental principle — namely that truth is a common good and not the property of those with power or influence.”
Truth is a common good. How completely we fact-checkers can claim that as our own. It has always been our guiding star.
And so I urge my fellow fact-checkers: do not quit. Not now, when the work is hardest and the need is greatest.
There’s a poem some of us learned growing up, taught to us by our mothers. It is plain-spoken, almost stubborn in its insistence. “Keep Going,” by Edgar A. Guest, reads, in part:
“When the funds are low and the debts are high,
when you want to smile but you have to sigh;
when care is pressing you down a bit —
rest if you must, but don’t you quit. …
You never can tell how close you are,
it may be near when it seems afar;
so stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit —
it’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.”
Don’t quit, my fellow fact-checkers. Rest if you must. But don’t quit.
And when you’re ready — say yes. Say yes to the hard challenges. Say yes to collaboration across borders and languages and different ways of working. Say yes to innovation. Say yes to each other.
That “yes” is why we gather. That is why we keep coming back to GlobalFact.
