evidence: Full Fact is the UK’s independent fact checking organisation, or at least, that’s what it says when you go to their website. The team who frequently appear on Radio 4 and TalkRADIO are looking for a new editor who will be paid a starting salary between £50,000 and £65,000. This is far more than most journalists make so it’s not unreasonable to ask how this self-appointed truth-teller receives its funding. Full Fact’s website reports that they were paid £1.1 million by Facebook and £206,500 by Google in 2019, plus a monthly payment of £7,300 worth of free advertising by the search giant. The funding by big-tech in 2019 makes up roughly 70% of their declared funding for the year. The editorial team say donations or payments for their services, which include automated fact-checking for Google, in no way compromise their editorial impartiality. [...] Full Fact is a charity with a small output of research compared to its size, funded primarily by big-tech and staffed to a large extent by former public sector workers or ex-reporters from left-wing media. There is no problem with any of this, but broadcasters should be wary of treating the nation’s self-appointed "independent fact checker" as an entirely unbiased source. It’s an odd state of affairs when an organisation could escape scrutiny merely by changing its name. Full Fact itself complained to Twitter when the Conservative Party tried this trick during an election debate. Are we letting them pull off the exact same grift?