I offer fact-checking services for books, magazine articles, and more. For these assignments, I typically work at an hourly rate.
I see my job as a fact checker as essentially reporting in reverse — starting with the final product and going back to the original sources. I look for everything from spelling of names and places to making sure that conclusions are drawn fairly from the available evidence.
Contact me if you are interested and want to talk about rates and your budget.
Here’s what clients have said about my work:
Colleen has fact checked some of the most sensitive stories I’ve edited at Insider, from our award-winning package on homicides targeting transgender people to an investigation into how family courts have sent kids into the custody of their abusers. She’s diligent, detail-oriented, a great communicator, and someone with great journalistic instincts who understands what’s at stake in a story. She’s also just a lovely human being and a pleasure to work with. I highly recommend her. – Esther Kaplan, editor and investigative journalist at Insider
Colleen is extremely reliable, always delivering expert fact-checking reports and research, meeting (or beating) her deadlines, even under tight time constraints. We have also often relied on her expertise in Spanish as well as her tact and discretion in dealing with sensitive subjects. I cannot recommend Colleen highly enough. – Debra Rosenberg, executive editor at Smithsonian magazine
Below is a sampling of pieces I’ve fact checked:
Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love, a book by Rebecca Frankel
Her son said his stepdad was sexually abusive. A judge gave the stepdad custody anyway. Then she found the photographs., an investigation by Olivia Gentile for Insider
A gender nonconforming teen was killed at a party in small town Alabama. Why haven’t police solved the case?, an investigation by Nicole Einbinder for Insider
Young female ‘SNL’ staffers say they were treated like ‘a joke,’ with sexual advances, babysitting requests, and an unsolicited nude photo, an investigation by Katie Warren for Insider
Unchecked and Unbalanced, an investigation by Justin Miller into Gov. Greg Abbott’s use of executive orders for the Texas Observer
Inside the Biggest Art Fraud in History, an art feature by Jordan Michael Smith for Smithsonian magazine
Ai Weiwei’s Latest Work Is a Monument to His Past, an art feature by Jay Cheshes for Smithsonian magazine
When It Comes to String Instruments, Stradivariuses Are Still Pitch Perfect, a historical piece by Ted Scheinman for Smithsonian magazine
How One Historian Located Liberia’s Elusive Founding Document, a historical piece by Amy Crawford for Smithsonian magazine
The Bald Eagle’s Soaring Return Shows That the U.S. Can Change for the Better, an ecological piece by Jack E. Davis for Smithsonian magazine