Why Canada still doesn't have a full-time fact-checking beat - Poynter

"He was hired by the Toronto Star in 2008, where, among other things, he would cover the late, troubled, larger-than-life Toronto mayor, Rob Ford. Eventually Dale was dispatched to be the Star's correspondent in Washington, D.C. After Donald Trump began his first presidential run in 2015, Dale found himself intrigued by Trump's numerous, less-than-accurate claims in his public appearances. In addition to his regular articles as a foreign correspondent, Dale began tweeting lists of false things Trump had said during his campaign rallies."

"Dale's editor at the Star, Ed Tubb, worked with him to regularize his Trump fact-checking on the newspaper's website and weave it into his overall coverage. Dale and Tubb focused on Trump's clearest, most obvious falsehoods as a way of highlighting how different he was as a politician, Tubb recalled. The pair created a running of Trump's questionable claims that eventually numbered in the thousands."

""It was never his sole day job, but it did become more of one for him," Tubb said. In metrics like pageviews and time spent on the site, Dale's work "was always at the top of the charts," Tubb said. And when it came to selling the project to the Star's higher-ups, Tubb said, "I never had any trouble." Back in Canada, the Star has periodically revived fact-checking journalism, including during Canada's 2021 federal elections and other political coverage ."

Daniel Dale grew up in Toronto, earned a business degree from York University, and joined the Toronto Star in 2008, covering figures such as Rob Ford before becoming the Star's Washington correspondent. During Donald Trump's 2015 presidential run, Dale began cataloguing and tweeting lists of Trump's inaccurate public claims, which gained audience traction in the 2016 election. Editor Ed Tubb formalized the effort, concentrating on clear falsehoods and compiling a running list that grew into the thousands. The project drove strong pageviews and engagement, and the Star has periodically revived fact-checking, including for Canada's 2021 federal election. Dale stands out as an unusually prominent Canadian fact-checker.

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