Abstract

The present article analyses similarity and differences between academic and professional speech about “fact checking”, understanding it from a double perspective, both, like a competence that current journalists have to acquire, and a work field that offers new opportunities. The research is based on a bibliographical review about the fact checkers’ profiles. It also collects the opinion of seven university professors by means of a structured interview and has access to the student’s point of view through a close-response test and a categorical test (n=316). It also analyses the content of the data verification departments that exists in Spain with the aim of knowing which the most demanded competences are. The results reflect that the discussion is still open and at the same time it shows a coincidence between both speeches about the necessity of a journalist’ solid training that integrates new profiles.