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Mark Stencel, Adjunct Instructor in the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy  

Office Location: 142 Sanford Building, Box 90241, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone: (919) 613-7326
Duke Box: 90241
Email Address: mark.stencel@duke.edu
Web Page: http://reporterslab.org

Areas of Expertise

    Education:
    B.A., University of Virginia, 1990

    Teaching (Spring 2024):

    • Pubpol 290s.04, Selected topics Synopsis
      Sanford 04, W 03:20 PM-05:50 PM

    Recent Publications   (More Publications)

    1. Stencel, M; MacDicken, E. "Know your pundit: What you don’t see in politics coverage on TV." Columbia Journalism Review (January, 2018).
    2. Stencel, M; Iannucci,. "Plenty of fact-checking is taking place, but finding it is another issue." Poynter Institute (October, 2017).  [abs]
    3. Stencel, M; Perry, K. "Superpowers: The Digital Skills Media Leaders Say Newsrooms Need Going Forward."  CUNY Graduate School of Journalism's Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, April, 2016  [abs]
    4. Stencel, M. The Weaponization of Fact-Checking.  Politico Magazine (May, 2015). [fact-checking-weaponization-117915]  [abs]
    5. Stencel, M. "‘Fact Check This’: How U.S. politics adapts to media scrutiny." ‘Fact Check This’: How U.S. politics adapts to media scrutiny. American Press Institute, May, 2015 [available here]  [abs]

    Highlight:

    Mark Stencel is co-director of the Reporters' Lab at Duke University, where he teaches journalism and tracks the spread and impact of political fact-checking. He was previously managing editor for digital news at National Public Radio. He has been a senior editor and media executive at The Washington Post and at Congressional Quarterly Inc. (now CQ-Roll Call). At CQ, he wrote regular columns on science and technology policy for CQ Weekly and Governing magazine. Prior to that, he was a science and technology reporter for The News & Observer in North Carolina's Raleigh-Durham area.

    Stencel's introduction to fact-checking was working as The Washington Post's political researcher during the 1992 U.S. elections, when he also was an assistant to syndicated Post columnist David S. Broder -- an early advocate for news reporting on the accuracy of political ads. Stencel later created a fact-checking feature called the "Debate Referee" for The Post's PoliticsNow digital partnership in 1996 and then oversaw later versions for washingtonpost.com during the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns.

    Stencel is the co-author of two books on politics and the media (including one with talk show host Larry King, then of CNN -- long story) and is working on a third. He wrote a 2015 report for the American Press Institute on the political impact of fact-checking in the United States (http://bit.ly/factcheckthis), and co-authored studies on the news industry's digital evolution for the Reporters' Lab (http://goatmustbefed.com) and CUNY's Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism (http://bit.ly/2016-news-superpowers).

    He is a former board chair of the Student Press Law Center and an advisory board member for the Center for Collaborative Journalism at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He was an informal advisor to PolitiFact during its launch in 2007 and later served on an advisory board member for its sister site, PunditFact, in 2013 and 2014. Stencel graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Soviet studies -- but that was the year before the Soviet Union ceased to exist, so his credentials as a media "futurist" should be considered with journalistic skepticism.

    Mark Stencel