ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Infectious disease outbreaks. Vitamin K shots. GLP-1 side effects. Peptide promises. At a time when questions about health and medicine are receiving more attention than ever, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning fact-checkers at PolitiFact and the media experts at the Poynter Institute are rolling out a new service to provide credible, practical information about these and many other personal health questions.
The service, called Well Informed, offers reliable, topical health information on social media, where more people are getting information — and misinformation — about health claims. The work is also be available on PolitiFact’s website. And, other news organizations that want to provide this trusted health information to their audiences can partner with Well Informed and publish the work as well, currently at no charge.
“Health information is everywhere and not all of it is reliable,” PolitiFact Editor-in-Chief Katie Sanders said. “Well Informed is designed to cut through the noise and elevate credible, science-backed reporting about issues people encounter in their daily lives.”
In 2024, polling by KFF found that people who use social media more frequently for health advice are more likely to believe false statements. Well Informed offers a strong antidote, tackling some of the most widely discussed topics with level-headed and nonjudgmental clarity so that people can make informed choices for themselves or their families.
While the rigorous research and transparency that are hallmarks of PolitiFact are also behind Well Informed, the presentation and audience are different, said Rebecca Catalanello, PolitiFact assistant managing editor and the editor of Well Informed. PolitiFact’s mission is to hold influential people and political leaders accountable for what they say.
“With Well Informed, we want to engage people who might not be interested in the political discourse of today but are really interested in making good decisions to keep them and their partners and their children and their parents healthy,” Catalanello said. Engaging and humorous videos on social platforms are a key feature to reach people who might be tuning out traditional news sources.
Partnerships are a key strategy to share more of the reporting with a bigger audience. PolitiFact already has a number of news partners for its fact-checking work that are now publishing Well Informed content, and it is offering the content to other interested news organizations. Eventually, Well Informed also plans to offer this content via a paid newsletter to healthcare companies, doctors’ practices and other medical providers who want fact-based, credible resources to share with their own patients, Catalanello said.
News organizations or healthcare providers interested in learning more about Well Informed should email PolitiFact editor in chief Katie Sanders at ksanders@poynter.org.
Find out more about how the project got started and what it’s doing to help health consumers make more informed decisions in this Q&A with Rebecca Catalanello.
Poynter: Why are PolitiFact and Poynter moving into the health coverage space?
Catalanello: Honestly, we were already in the health coverage space. PolitiFact has been in it for a long time, including a huge body of work about COVID. But it’s becoming clear more and more people are getting their health information and advice from social media platforms. Statistics show that as people are avoiding political news, they are really leaning into advice from these online influencers. Some of them are peddling products, and not all of them know what they are talking about in terms of what is scientifically proven. Pew Research found something like 30 percent of Americans are sometimes getting advice from these platforms. We’ve seen it play out among our own families and friends. We thought it was time for us to take a dive into really meeting readers in the place where they are getting this information to help them sort through what has become a confusing landscape of health and wellness. And to bring the kind of deeply reported work that we do at PolitiFact, but in a very consumer focused way.
Poynter: It sounds like there’s going to be a heavy social media focus to this work.
Catalanello: That’s right. We have prioritized engaging videos from our reporters. We are now live with that part of the product on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, anywhere — we’re even on Pinterest. Anywhere you could potentially run into confusing health and wellness claims, we’ll be there providing information. And we also want to hear from users about what questions they have.
Poynter: What would be the benefit for a news organization to publish Well Informed’s material?
Catalanello: We are answering the questions their audience has. A lot of these topics are things we see in our own feeds. Does hot water really help with digestion? Will vibration plates make me lose weight and gain muscle? Is it safe to give Vitamin K to my baby? What about Tylenol? Local news organizations have the opportunity to use this deeply reported material and engage their audience with content and answers they might not always have the resources to tackle themselves.
Poynter: How else might you be distributing this content?
Catalanello: We also see this being enormously helpful to professionals in the healthcare industry. Insurers, providers, administrative leaders, nurses. We are considering a paid newsletter product to help them navigate conversations with patients and staff about ever-changing health trends and ideas. That is something we have heard in our conversations with people in the healthcare field that they want: an easy way to communicate with their patients about these topics that keep coming up, that they don’t necessarily have the bandwidth to give patients the information they need to make the best decisions.
Poynter: Why is PolitiFact the organization to provide this information? You aren’t doctors.
Catalanello: We are very skilled at answering questions about complicated things and being transparent about how we do it. This is how we work all the time. We are less interested in the political posturing and more interested in what the facts actually are. That is what we are bringing to Well Informed. We show our sources, we dig into every nook and cranny. We let people know when there’s not a clear answer to a question or a topic. We’re thorough. Although our stories and videos are very conversational and light hearted, you can be assured that our Well Informed staff are giving every question we have a very thorough investigation. We don’t have any political aims. Our mission is to really find clarity.
Poynter: What kinds of things can your audience expect to find on the Well Informed feed?
Catalanello: It’s any moment that we can bring clarity to a confusing topic. We’re suckers for whenever a health topic coincides with pop culture or a newsy moment — for example The Pitt featured a patient who reported to the ER with signs of turmeric overdose so we did a story on tumeric. When we heard President Trump joke about Diet Coke being a cancer cure we decided to do a little story about what research says about the actual effects of diet sodas on your health. During March Madness one of our reporters was tired of being bombarded with ads for betting apps and we did a story about how to identify addictive behavior and what to do when that happens. But there are also times when there is just a big or confusing moment in the news, like the president’s press conference about Tylenol and autism. We did a story for Well Informed about what the science says about these two things.
Poynter: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has generated a lot of attention and controversy over health-related claims. Can we expect to see coverage of those on Well Informed?
Catalanello: At Well Informed we plan on answering the questions this discourse raises, while PolitiFact continues its accountability coverage, holding powerful people accountable for the truth of what they specifically say. Well Informed will reframe our approach to these topics for curious people — for people who are turned out of politics but still want to know what’s going on. Kennedy’s influence over health policy has added that other layer of confusion around health topics.
Listen to editors Katie Sanders and Rebecca Catalanello discuss Well Informed with Poynter’s senior media writer Tom Jones on The Poynter Report podcast.
To provide Well Informed content to your news audience: Email Ksanders@poynter.org
Follow Well Informed on social media:
Media Contact:
Jennifer Orsi
Vice President, Publishing and Local News Initiatives
jorsi@poynter.org
About the Poynter Institute:
The Poynter Institute is a global nonprofit working to address society’s most pressing issues by teaching journalists and journalism, covering the media and the complexities facing the industry, convening and community building, improving the capacity and sustainability of news organizations and fostering trust and reliability of information. The Institute is the gold standard in journalistic excellence and dedicated to the preservation and advancement of press freedom in democracies worldwide. Through Poynter, journalists, newsrooms, businesses, big tech corporations and citizens convene to find solutions that promote trust and transparency in news and stoke meaningful public discourse. The world’s top journalists and emerging media leaders rely on the Institute to learn new skills, adopt best practices, better serve audiences, scale operations and improve the quality of the universally shared information ecosystem.
The Newmark Ethics Center, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), MediaWise and PolitiFact are all members of the Poynter organization.
Support for Poynter and our entities upholds the integrity of the free press and the U.S. First Amendment and builds public confidence in journalism and media — an essential for healthy democracies. Learn more at poynter.org.
About PolitiFact:
PolitiFact is an independent fact-checking newsroom founded in 2007 and operated by the Poynter Institute. Its journalists evaluate claims made by elected officials, public figures and widely shared online sources, rating their accuracy and providing evidence-based context to help readers separate fact from fiction. PolitiFact was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.
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