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  • Snopes Digest Issue #108: New 'tracker' template, fact-checking rumors Trump's a Russian asset — and more

Snopes Digest Issue #108: New 'tracker' template, fact-checking rumors Trump's a Russian asset — and more

Here's what's happening inside the Snopes newsroom

Author

Izz LaMagdeleine
March 19, 2025

March 19, 2025・Issue #108

1. Since We Last Met: Our new ‘tracker’ template

Let's talk about what's going on with Snopes: the newsroom, the products, the people, and everything and anything that makes Snopes, Snopes. This month, executive editor/managing editor Doreen Marchionni reflects on our new “tracker” template and the ways we’ve used it so far in the newsroom.

For months, Snopes has been racing to keep up with changes and initiatives coming out of the second Trump presidential administration. Stories published sometimes change in a blink and require numerous updates in real time. Now to help us deal with this is a new kind of story template: the tracker. Built specifically by Snopes’ coders (our CEO is one of them) at the newsroom’s request, the tracker template is basically a simple spreadsheet that can give readers a quick glance of a news subject that frequently changes or updates. Our first foray: presidential executive orders and cabinet nominees. We hope to build variations on this simple template in the future. Stay tuned.

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2. Behind the Snopes: Unpacking rumors that Trump’s a Russian asset

From Reporters Jack Izzo & Amelia Clarke:

Donald Trump was accused of being a Russian asset as early as 2016, but a newer claim referring to him as "Krasnov" took the accusation to a whole new level of specifics. On one side, that made it easier to check everything — the more specific information, the easier it is to find discrepancies. On the other side, it made everything more difficult — claims about international espionage are almost impossible to check because no spy agency would ever publicly share that kind of information, and this claim was specifically about the notoriously secret KGB.

The English language information available about the man making the claim, Alnur Mussayev, a former Soviet and Kazakh security official, was fairly limited. So, one of our starting points for research was Mussayev’s Russian-language Wikipedia page, which was relatively well-sourced and significantly more detailed than its English counterpart. We were able to identify and use key phrases from that Wikipedia page to find more information on Mussayev on the Russian-language web and found discrepancies in the story he presented — for instance, the ministry and directorate he was supposedly assigned to at the time Trump visited Moscow wasn’t responsible for recruiting foreign agents. We also thought it was important to explain the other accusations against Trump, especially given that Mussayev is actually the second ex-KGB spy to claim the agency recruited Trump. However, that claim suffers from the same problem the "Krasnov" one does — no espionage agency would ever publicly share this sort of information.

3. Overheard at Snopes

We look into a lot of weird stuff at Snopes. We imagine it's very interesting to be a fly on the wall, so we wanted to give you a look at some of the things we have to say when fact-checking.

Overheard: can I ask… were u or are u a prolific tagger/categorizer on tumblr…

— Reporter Grace Deng

4. Snopes-tionary: ‘Double Byline’

From Assignments Editor Tom Steele:

Many of our articles are the work of a single reporter, and the credit — or byline — at the top of the story reflects that.

In some cases, however, you may see two names at the top of a Snopes article. This is a double byline, a way of crediting two reporters who both contribute significantly to a piece of journalism. Sometimes reporters pair up to divide the workload on a substantial deep dive; other times we ask reporters to work together on an especially newsworthy topic so that we're able to publish a fact check as quickly as possible.

Examples of double-bylined Snopes articles include this piece by Jack Izzo and Grace Deng debunking President Donald Trump's claim that millions of people older than 100 are collecting Social Security checks and a thorough explainer of Project 2025 by Nur Ibrahim and Aleksandra Wrona.

Mental Health Break

Snopes investigates some grim and depressing claims, so we know how important it is to your mental health to see something silly, funny, or just plain heartwarming. Here are some links that made us smile.

5. Snopes-worthy Media

What Snopes is paying attention to across the web.

— Zach Mack, NPR

— Claire McNear, The Ringer

— Curtis Bunn, NBC BLK

Thanks for reading this edition of the Snopes Digest. We send new issues of the newsletter every month, so please add this email address to your white list and keep an eye out for the next issue.

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