Fact checking isn't a glamorous job. As the research director for Allure, when done right, my hard work is invisible, much like the no-makeup makeup look. It's only when there's a mistake that the spotlight flashes on a fact checker, and from a very unflattering angle. [Editor's note: She's being hard on herself. I couldn't do my job without her. - RZ]
But one of the few glimmers to come out of the election season—you know, the one that's been marred with controversy—is that it's made fact checking great again, as journalist Brian Stelter made the case for on CNN.com. My job, the invisible one, all of a sudden, became very visible. I can't remember a time that my chosen field of work has ever been so prominent—for all the right reasons. As Stelter pointed out, there's been huge traffic upticks to sites like The Washington Post's blog, Fact Checker, and the Pulitzer-Prize winning, independent fact checking site, PolitiFact. Finally, fact checking is in the spotlight being recognized as a force for good. While 2016 might be the year of the monkey, according to the Chinese zodiac, I declare 2016 the year of the fact checker. Consider the red crayon emoji as fact checking, symbolized.
Now, I realize being the arbiter of accuracy for Allure isn’t exactly on the same level of importance as fact checking the statements of the candidates running to be the next leader of the United States. But I take it just as seriously—any editor or writer here can fact check that first-hand, when I approach them with a nervous glint in my eye, queries in hand. (Or you know, through Slack.) And that’s because I see and know Allure as the expert for all things beauty. With so many dubious sources online and the potential for misinformation to spread, it’s more important than ever to have a trusted site.
The myriad of questionable sites out there reminds me of a bit of my (pre-internet) years in junior high, when my friend would tell me over lunch how she swore the best way to get rid of zits was squeezing and popping them with her pen in the bathroom, or my other “expert” friend would wax poetic on how she poured oil over her legs at the beach to make her legs turn golden brown. I raised a 14-year-old quizzical eyebrow at their expertise, and turned to my glossy mags for acne tips and sun protection, where I’d find quotes from real, living, breathing doctors who’d wisely debunk the “wisdom” of popping zits, and warn against the dangers not using sunscreen. The magazines were my trusted Encyclopedia Britannicas for beauty. And years later, when I became a research editor for a teen magazine (RIP CosmoGIRL!), my intuition was confirmed, as I became part of the layers of editing and fact checking that my position entailed and pored over transcripts with dermatologists, deconstructing each sentence, and the ingredients of each product we recommended. If it was published, it had the #SegalSealofApproval. (Trademark pending. Ok, not actually pending, but wouldn’t that be awesome?)
Here's when you need to call a dermatologist:
Because when you’re a fact checker, you rely on two factors: your intuition and your sources. When I first review an article, I get what I liken to the tingle of the “Spidey sense," which is basically when I just have a gut feeling that something isn’t right. And if it keeps nagging at me, I have to say, there's a 90 percent likelihood there’s a reason why. At the same time, I also operate on the assumption that the entire article or post or feature is wrong, from the spellings of brand names and the listing of ingredients to the names of salons and steps to a great blow-out. I know this kind of makes me a Debbie Downer, but that way, I can only be pleasantly surprised, right? So, I deconstruct the words of an article and against a combination of trusted sources, experts, and websites, to put the story back together and see what still fits. It’s like solving a puzzle, with the satisfaction that you can show off the completed puzzle to millions of readers.
And figuring out the puzzle is the most fun at Allure. Whereas political fact checkers might be parsing the audio of a wonky policy speech and a tangled web of statistics, my sources happen to involve testing out first-hand the speed of a Best of Beauty Breakthrough-winning blow dryer, or having a celebrity makeup artist walk me through the exact steps on perfecting the cat-eye look. And I've become the personal walking-talking reference library to our staff, dispensing wisdom ingrained in my brain on the difference between physical blockers and chemical filters for UV protection, and the difference between a humectant and an emollient in a moisturizer (check out our glossary for those answers, a.k.a. the inner workings of my beauty research brain).
Even more importantly, the fact checking process involves working with top experts, like dermatologists, directly to give you solid advice for sun protection, to making sure you know what to expect for your first full dermatologist in-office skin check. The research process makes sure we're not being alarmist, but we're also not being negligent, and giving you the best, most current and accurate findings and advice.
Thanks to fact checking for Allure, I know it's not about which moisturizer has the prettiest packaging, it's about which one has power house hydrators like hyaluronic acid and ceramides at the top of their full ingredient lists. I know that just because I read an article that says eating pasta won't make me gain weight, to find the actual study for the real takeaway, and read the fine print to know that Barilla and the Italian Ministry of Economic Research helped fund the study, which you know, gives the entire thing way less credibility. I raise my well-groomed eyebrow at everything I read—all, of course, so you don't have to.
The next post you read on our site, or the next article you read in our November issue, you can rest assured it's been reviewed, deconstructed, analyzed, and optimized for your reading pleasure by me and the rest of the Allure a-team research department. And while fact checkers assessing the "truthiness" of the candidates' statements will no doubt come away from this election more well-versed in policy and government, researching for Allure helps in other important ways. Like knowing how to make a bad hair day a good hair day, when to use sunscreen (always!), and when to call BS (tanning beds).
So as you toast to the end of this election season (I'll be doing so!), raise your glass for your friendly fact checkers too. And think twice before you believe everything you read!
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