Fernández-Roldán Díaz, AlejandroTeira Serrano, David2024-05-212024-05-212024-02-24https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-024-00575-8https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/19421Fact-checking agencies assess and score the truthfulness of politicians’ claims to foster their electoral accountability. Fact-checking is sometimes presented as a quasi-scientific activity, based on reproducible verification protocols that would guarantee an unbiased assessment. We will study these verification protocols and discuss under which conditions fact-checking could achieve effective reproducibility. Through an analysis of the methodological norms in verification protocols, we will argue that achieving reproducible fact-checking may not help much in rendering politicians accountable. Political fact-checkers do not deliver either reproducibility or accountability today, and there are reasons to think that traditional quality journalism may serve liberal democracies better.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessjournal articlefact-checkingtruth scoresreproducibilityaccountability