Frequently asked questions

We focus on what affects our society in all its diversity and on topics that are of particular relevance to our readers. With our work, we aim to expose social grievances. Hence, our investigations are not oriented towards specific events, but rather highlight structural issues. Nevertheless, we also want to surprise with our topics and publications and aim to be a catalyst for social debate. This is how societal change becomes possible.

Our investigations are focused on the following areas: Climate, Corruption, Justice, Medicine, Education, Life, Economy, Extremism.

With our work, we stand for an open and democratic society. We don’t just investigate and report, we also want to spark change.

Our journalism is a means of empowering citizens: The more people are familiar with the mechanisms of journalistic work, the stronger a society’s media competence and culture of debate becomes.

This view is also reflected in the way we work with each other. To obtain the best results possible in our investigative work, we cooperate in teams. We involve each other in our work and share our knowledge. Other media and organizations are not competition to us, but partners. We think in cooperative structures, because together, we can uncover more hidden stories, inform the public more comprehensively and have a greater impact.

When crime is organized internationally, we can counter it and uncover clandestine structures through journalistic cooperation across national borders ─ as in our international investigations into the Cum-Ex Files or Grand Theft Europe. Most recently, we expanded our focus outside of Europe in our large-scale investigation Nurses for Sale and cooperated with media in Latin America.

Working collaboratively is also immensely helpful for CORRECTIV on a local level, which is why we work in a network with a variety of local media at CORRECTIV.Lokal. From our point of view, society needs more teamwork instead of only acting against each other. The media can set a positive example in this regard. With our work, we want to contribute to diversity and quality in the media system.

We are always open to new cooperations ─ locally as well as internationally – new research methods and new forms of publication. We want to engage with our readers, in our bookstore, at our Campfire Festival or other events.

The editorial team of CORRECTIV consists of permanently employed journalists who investigate topics in the areas of their respective expertise. In addition, there are freelance journalists with whom we regularly collaborate on projects or topics.

Our editors-in-chief are Olaya Argueso and Justus von Daniels. Their dual leadership reflects the relevance of teamwork in our editorial office.

The fact-checking newsroom is an independent team inside of CORRECTIV. They debunk false information, rumors and half-truths on a daily basis. The team is currently lead by Alice Echtermann and Uschi Jonas.

In spring 2020, CORRECTIV launched its own youth newsroom: Salon5 is a media platform by teenagers for teenagers that lets them participate in democratic discourse from a young age. The youth newsroom is headed by Hatice Kahraman.

Targeted disinformation is used to divide our society, spread hatred or conduct crooked business. One-sided or false information creates distorted world views. This leads to insecurity and can even be dangerous in some cases. 40 % of Germans say they feel overwhelmed when it comes to identifying fake news. That’s why we want our fact-checkers to help everyone learn to recognize fake news and stop it in its tracks.

CORRECTIV.Faktencheck exposes false information, rumors and half-truths on a daily basis, provides background information on targeted disinformation and gives workshops and interviews on how to deal with the so-called “fake news”.

CORRECTIV.Faktencheck is an independent newsroom of the non-profit center of investigative journalism CORRECTIV. It is non-partisan in its stance and committed to neutrality in fact-checking. It operates according to the criteria of the international Code of Principles of the US-American Poynter Institute, an independent non-profit academy for journalists. This Code has been signed by fact-checking teams around the world. You can see who is currently among them here. CORRECTIV.Faktencheck is furthermore bound by the CORRECTIV editorial statute.

CORRECTIV is a non-profit limited liability company. For us, investigating for society means that our publications and activities have to be freely available to everyone, not just a few. Our journalistic work gets by without advertising revenue, restrictive paywalls or subscription models.

Our work is financed through three pillars of income:

1. Donations from citizens who want to support our work in the long term. Small and large donations as well as regular contributions are the basis of our funding and therefore particularly important to us.
2. Institutions such as foundations and corporations that are committed to the values of an educated and open society and that want to strengthen our democracy also contribute. They support our core activities or allow us to realize new projects, such as the Brost Foundation’s start-up funding for CORRECTIV. However, no donor has any influence on the content of our work; the editorial team works with complete independence.
3. Through our own economic activities, such as the production and sale of books or workshops, we support our non-profit work by our own strength.

A balanced mix of these three pillars avoids dependencies. From our perspective, each pillar should ideally make a growing contribution in the long term and should not represent more than 50 percent of revenues. In this way, we achieve independent and stable funding as a whole.

We publish our annual business reports, as well as incoming contributions and donations. Publication takes place in a timely manner in each case. The detailed provisions can be found in our editorial statute.

We work independently from economic and political influences, which is a particular challenge in today’s media world.

We do not accept money from people or corporations who want to dictate how we should work. No one will exert influence on our editorial work. This independence and our credibility are the foundation of our work as a whole. We are only perceived as credible if we apply the same standards to ourselves by which we judge others journalistically and critically. Transparency plays a crucial role and is a matter of identity to us. We are aware that the public’s ethical and moral standards for a non-profit project like ours are much higher than for commercial media. For this reason, we publish all incoming donations and contributions on our website: Donations from private individuals are shown as a total amount, grants from foundations or companies are shown if above 1,000 €. The balance sheet and income statement from our annual financial statements, which are voluntarily audited each year, are freely available as well.

The provisions about publication of revenues can be found in our editorial statute.

In addition, memberships of our editors and all employees in associations, political parties or other organizations are disclosed to our supporters.