Media in Minutes

Hannah Hudnall: Fact-Check Reporter for USA TODAY

• Season 3 • Episode 26

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Recent grad, Hannah Hudnall, speaks with Angela about redirection after graduating college during the end of the pandemic and how she landed at USA TODAY as a fact-checker.

Follow Hannah’s life and work here:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-hudnall   

Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=hudnall_hannah 

 

USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/staff/10146264002/hannah-hudnall/ 

Check Your Fact: https://checkyourfact.com/ 

Bud Light Billboards: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/04/27/fact-check-no-bud-light-didnt-make-crybabies-billboard/11743431002/ 

Antidepressants and mass shootings: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/04/10/fact-check-no-link-found-between-antidepressants-and-school-shootings/11601960002/ 

6 yr old stabbing: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/10/16/hate-crime-fears-after-6-year-old-stabbed-to-death/71206940007/ 

 
Thank you for listening!  Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to the Media in Minutes podcast here or anywhere you get your podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/media-in-minutes/id1555710662  

Angela Tuell:

Welcome to Media in Minutes. This is your host, Angela Tuell. This podcast features in-depth interviews with those reports on the world around us. They share everything from their favorite stories to what happened behind the lens and give us a glimpse into their world. From our studio here at Communications Redefined, this is Media in Minutes. Today we are talking with Hannah Hudnall. She is a fact check reporter for USA Today. Previously, Hannah worked as a fact check reporter for Check Your Fact and is a graduate of Miami University in Ohio. She is based in Chicago, Illinois. Hi, Hannah. Welcome to the show.

Hannah Hudnall:

Hi, how are you?

Angela Tuell:

Doing great. I'm looking forward to talking with you today. I wanted to start with you're a fairly new graduate. You graduated from Miami University of Ohio in 2021. Right?

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, yeah.

Angela Tuell:

But you're already getting lots of experience. If you will please walk us through, you know how you landed your current job with USA Today? How you got there?

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, it's kind of a weird story. So obviously, I graduated kind of not in like the heart of the COVID pandemic, but kind of on the tail end of it. So I majored in international studies and actually accepted a job to teach English in a different country after graduation, but they all really, I was going to be teaching in Japan, which ended up having like the most strict COVID guidelines out of any other country.

Angela Tuell:

Right.

Hannah Hudnall:

So that kind of ended up falling through temporarily and none of us really knew when the pandemic was going to end. So I kind of just had to put that on hold and

Angela Tuell:

Okay.

Hannah Hudnall:

- international geography. And I stumbled upon look for some other thing to do. And so for a couple months after graduation, I was just like, you know, delivering food and doing something called fact check reporting. And I wasn't super like little Secretary Work and administration. And then I would like every week look for things in the political sphere, or clear on what that was, I thought I would be like fact something relating at all to my major in what I studied, because I studied a lot of like politics and - checking politicians. But I applied for the job and actually went through a couple rounds of interviews and landed a spot at a team called Check Your Fact, which is like, okay, slightly newer, slightly smaller and started experiencing what factcheck reporting is, which is actually fact checking things on social media and claims online. And I realized how important of a tool it is. Following the COVID pandemic, there was so much misinformation online. With the the invasion of Ukraine, and now Israel and Palestine, anytime there's like hot topics, or the amount of misinformation that follows is insane.

Angela Tuell:

Yes.

Hannah Hudnall:

So I did feel like a little limited at that first company. So I kind of started looking again online and seeing what other opportunities are out there. And USA Today was hiring. And it was kind of a long process, trying to get a job here. But I started about a year and a half ago. And I really love the team I'm working with. And it's just been a really great opportunity that when I graduated, I had no idea existed.

Angela Tuell:

It's amazing. So you had no background training in journalism?

Hannah Hudnall:

No, I took a journalism 101 class my freshman year, but I kind of had this idea that that just meant doing interviews on camera. And I've always been a little shy. So I was like, I don't know if that's for me. But when I realized that you could do reporting, like on the computer and just kind of like, speak with your words, not with your face and your voice. It was a lot more comfortable for me.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. So you've been there about a year and a half with USA Today. What were you surprised to learn about being a fact checker?

Hannah Hudnall:

I was surprised. First of all, like what types of things you fact checked because I guess as someone who doesn't, I guess regularly spread opinions or strong misinformation online I didn't even know that it was a program. But it really like Facebook has hired so many different factcheck organizations to help them combat like misinformation online. Yeah. But I didn't know how big of a industry it was becoming after the COVID pandemic. And I didn't realize that, I don't know that there was such a strong presence still on websites like Facebook, right? Because everybody moves to like the new best new thing. like Instagram, and then Twitter and now Instagram Threads, but -

Angela Tuell:

Tik Tok.

Hannah Hudnall:

So a lot of voices on places like Facebook.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. So the misinformation you find you mentioned, you know, online social. Do you also check media outlets, whether they be, you know, more opinion ones or mainstream? Or is it mostly social and online websites?

Hannah Hudnall:

It is mostly social media, because I think in an effort to seem as like non bias as possible, and not to give the appearance that we're fact checking other people in our industry.

Angela Tuell:

Right.

Hannah Hudnall:

We tend to avoid like reputable news outlets or politicians that are currently in office or running.

Angela Tuell:

Okay.

Hannah Hudnall:

But, like if it's, if it's like a social media account that claims to be a news network, but doesn't really publish reputable credible news reports. We can go like case by case basis and fact check some of the things that they're saying.

Angela Tuell:

Okay, I bet that's pretty rewarding when you find things that are wrong, and you're able to kind of crack the record.

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah. It's hard because obviously, the people getting fact checked aren't super happy about it - a lot of kick back, but it is, it does feel rewarding thinking that hopefully there are people out there that will just stumble across my fact check out of curiosity and learn something new. And also like I learned something new with every fact check I do. And my editors do too.

Angela Tuell:

Do you do fact checking on an all different topics or are you in a certain a certain area?

Hannah Hudnall:

I do all different kinds of topics. Lately, it's just been mostly the Israel Hamas war, just because of the sheer amount of viral claims stemming from it. I've done a lot of different things in the past couple of years that I've been doing this. I am most interested in, like, politics and human rights specifically. I've done a couple of like LGBT ones and certain laws required regarding that. So-

Angela Tuell:

Okay, great. And we'll link to some of them in our show notes so, so our listeners can can read them and see what they're like. Describe for us, you know, your role as fact checker, kind of what a typical day looks like, or what tools and resources you use.

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, um, so I, we have a tool, a couple tools that help us look at what posts are gaining traction online in certain periods of time. And like, the Facebook has a tool that can flag certain posts for potentially false claims. And so can look through that keeping up to date with like, what's going on in the news across different outlets, what other factcheck outlets like what subjects they've been covering. If you know, like, if there's been a recent shooting or, or with the, the car that exploded on the Rainbow Bridge, just knowing what's happening, there's bound to be false claims relating to it.

Angela Tuell:

Right.

Hannah Hudnall:

And just looking for claims with like, a certain amount of traction online, because we don't want to waste time with posts that only have like one or two shares. We want to make sure that we're reaching as large of an audience as possible.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, yeah.

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, it's kind of up to each of us what claims we pitch and then if they get approved, we start working on the fact check article and do some research and then it gets edited.

Angela Tuell:

Okay, so is it normally one story a day? One story takes several days? Multiple a day?

Hannah Hudnall:

It really varies. There are certain stories that are pretty cut and dry like a lot of recent ones I've been doing it's this video doesn't show this, it shows this and then like hanging the background to that. But sometimes you'll come across claims that are a lot more in depth and you have to reach out to experts and sometimes it takes them a few days to get back to you. So it really could last anywhere from like a few hours to like a whole week. I know that some people on my team have stories that took them like a couple months to work on.

Angela Tuell:

Wow. I bet AI throws a whole 'nother thing into it as well, right? Knowing how do you go about that with the videos that may be fake that way or you know other things that are created from AI?

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, it really shows that even when you have been fact checking AI for months, you're still not as much of an expert as you think because I'll come across things in social media and think that they're real when I first look at them, and then the next day someone on my team will pitch the claim and show that it's not real. And so I always feel a little shocked with that. But I think it's just showing me that you always need to be questioning what you see online. And if it's reinforcing some type of belief you have there is the potential that it's not real. So we do have a couple experts that we, that we reach out to regularly just to make sure that, you know, they can confirm whether they look like authentic pictures or videos or not. Yeah, just see what we can do to verify the legitimacy of it.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, that's kind of scary as you who's you know, working in the industry, and a fact checker could possibly even think something looks real, or you know, believe it at first. That's something I'm definitely even trying to teach my kids about online and making sure I mean, you know, we need to know it as well, but making sure that they don't believe everything in a video is much more - I mean if you see someone speaking with their lips, and it looks like they're saying it, it's believable.

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, it's easy to think like, oh, well, the person in this picture has six fingers so it's clearly not real. But then some people have gotten so advanced at video editing that, like, I remember, when there was the Bud Light controversy, I fact checked a video of a billboard that said, LOL crybabies and looked like it was created by Bud Light. And when I found out that that wasn't real, I was just so shocked because it looked so seamless. And it makes me wonder if fact checkers didn't exist, there'd be no reason not to believe it, you know?

Angela Tuell:

Right. And so how do you get the - or how does USA Today get those fact checking stories out wider? And is there a way to, because obviously, you can do these stories, but we need to try to make sure people are seeing them or reading them.

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, so obviously, we publish them on the website, but then we attach the fact check to the posts that we mentioned in the article. So there's one primary posts that we always base the fact check around. And then we'll maybe mention a couple of secondary posts to show how much traction it's gotten.

Angela Tuell:

Okay.

Hannah Hudnall:

So when we attach the fact check to posts like that, the users will see that and then anyone that stumbles across their posts, if they're flagged as false, will see like a warning. And you have to hit like see post, if you still want to proceed with it, and it'll show our factcheck and then any other outlets that publish fact checks about it.

Angela Tuell:

Oh, that's great.

Hannah Hudnall:

But yeah, sometimes I do wish there were ways for to gain like, a little more widespread.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. And unfortunately, there's some people that there's negativity towards journalists, you know, some people in thinking it even if they see that they might not believe it, you know, believe that the fact check is correct, which I know is is frustrating.

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah. I mean, it's really understandable. If you think that, you know, your freedom of speech is being restricted, it's understandable that you would look at the name under the fact check that's attached to your posts, and, you know, send them an angry email. But I do wish that maybe they could read the article with a little bit of a objectivity to see that I'm not just doing this out of spite or because I have some type of bias. It's just, kind of as objective as I can be laying out why what they've said is wrong, and why it's important to not spread information like that. You know, with some of the things I fact checked with, like, the COVID vaccine and COVID itself, it's like some of these things could put people's lives in danger. So...

Angela Tuell:

Yes.

Hannah Hudnall:

It's, it's not to hurt any specific person. It's just kind of to make sure that people online aren't falling for dangerous misinformation.

Angela Tuell:

Yes. Do you get a lot of negative email?

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, I would say that. A lot of people on my team do, unfortunately. I kind of, I've been doing this for a couple years now. So at the beginning, it maybe was a little more shocking. Now I kind of just, yeah, open it, skim it, delete it.

Angela Tuell:

And let it roll off.

Hannah Hudnall:

If it's actually like, what's the word helpful criticism, constructive criticism, I'm always that I mean, if they have corrections, and I misphrase, something, I can absolutely appreciate that and like work with my editors to fix any problems, but sometimes it's just kind of like, harassment or name calling. And in that, it's just better to not really -

Angela Tuell:

Not engage. Right, right. You mentioned a little bit but what are some of the common challenges you face in the fact checking process?

Hannah Hudnall:

I would say, sticking within the guidelines sometimes can be hard because you never want to fact check something that's like, too, clearly a joke or too much of an opinion not so much a claim. There's certain topics that we stray away from, like things like abortion, or unless it's like a law concerning that we just, hey, we want to keep our fat checks as straightforward as possible. And so sometimes it's hard to find regular misinformation that's both widespread and fits within the guidelines that we try to stick in. But I would say for the most part, it's not too difficult. Sometimes I'll be like, a couple days into a fact check and realize that it's just kind of fallen apart and doesn't work. And that's always kind of hard scrapping something after -

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, that you've worked a lot on, right?

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah. But at the end of the day, I would rather do that than publish something that just isn't objectively good.

Angela Tuell:

Right, right. No, that makes sense. What are you most proud of in your work so far?

Hannah Hudnall:

I would say I'm definitely most proud of the fact checks that took the most time. Like, obviously, I'm still happy with the fact checks, I do correcting, like, miscaptioned videos and stuff like that. But the fact checks I've done about one of my proudest was how people associate antidepressants with mass shootings. And I reached out to a lot of experts for that, used a couple of studies and mass shootings has been such a hot topic lately in America. It's something that a lot of people are really passionate about. And as someone who is familiar with mental health and medication, I just that was something that I was really proud to be able to nip in the bud, I think, yeah, really dangerous sentiment to be spreading. So I think the more time I spend on something, the happier I am with it, when it goes out, and I can share it with family and friends. And they can actually learn

Angela Tuell:

Right, right. Everything you're writing, something. you've learned from, and those who are reading it learn from. How big is the team at USA Today, of fact checkers?

Hannah Hudnall:

I think at this point might be like seven or eight reporters, and then a few editors, it's kind of in the past year and a half, been a lot of change. People find new opportunities within or outside of USA Today. But some of the people have been there the entire time that I have. So yeah, we're like a pretty close knit team. And everybody's really great. So -

Angela Tuell:

That's great. So being, going back to the fairly recent grad, any advice for other fellow recent grads?

Hannah Hudnall:

I would just say that, you know, keep your mind and your options open. Because your major doesn't necessarily have to dictate exactly what you do. And what you think you're going to be doing when you're a freshman or a senior in college isn't necessarily what you're going to end up doing. And I think it just makes a funny story. When someone asks you, what do you do? And how did you get there? And you're like, how much time do you have? Most people's stories aren't super straightforward. I mean, some people are they graduated studying business, and now they're in sales. But right, hey, that, you know, sometimes you'll just stumble into something, and it'll end up being something that you're really passionate about.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah. And you shouldn't assume because I was thinking you went to journalism school. So I love hearing that. Yeah. What do you hope the future holds for you?

Hannah Hudnall:

I think it would be really interesting to kind of connect with what I studied a little bit. I do enjoy doing fact checks about international conflicts, but just leaning a little bit more towards that maybe someday, branching out of just purely fact checking into regular reporting would be interesting. I, a couple of weeks ago, or a month ago, helped with some of the local reporting with the story about the six year old Muslim boy that was stabbed in Chicago and it was a really, really awful story, but it was so eye opening to be able to be on the ground and provide real time information for my team. Because there wasn't anyone else in the area that could do it and so helping with really important stories like that. I don't know. It's really empowering.

Angela Tuell:

Yeah, I did see that article. So we'll post that as well. I was going to ask you about the reporting. So maybe there'll be some more of that in the near future. It's very, like you said eye opening article too. Before we go I'd also love to know what you enjoy doing in your spare time, if you have Yes. You know, that's important when we do this any.

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, um, I sometimes I'm a little bit of a nerd. I leave I've been getting into cross stitching just as for, when we do this for a living in the news and like a mindless little thing to maybe take my eyes off of a screen for a little bit because I look at the screen all day. constantly the negativity and just you know, following the But just, you know, trying to see like live music with friends noise and following that all the time, and especially the fact and doing things to put my mind at ease and not think too much in my free time. checking part. It's important to have some mindless things, you know. I'm not watching the news too much when I'm not working.

Angela Tuell:

Yes, yes, yes. Well, and you're in Chicago, right? You said that's where you're based?

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah.

Angela Tuell:

Okay. Great.

Hannah Hudnall:

So there's always a lot to do in this area. I really like -

Angela Tuell:

Yes. It's a great town. Definitely. How can listeners connect with you online?

Hannah Hudnall:

Um, I would say that I have Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to look for fact checks and hoping to use them a little bit more. They're a little bit bare bones right now but hoping to maybe start sharing some of the articles on there. But...

Angela Tuell:

Great, yeah, we will link to those in our show notes as well. Thank you so much, Hannah.

Hannah Hudnall:

Yeah, thank you so much.

Angela Tuell:

That's all for this episode of Media in Minutes, a podcast by Communications Redefined. Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to our show. We'd love to hear what you think. You can find more at Communications Redefined.com/podcast. I'm your host, Angela Tuell. Talk to you next time.