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Fact Briefs

Will New York Focus Start Publishing Fact-Checks?

Yes. This claim is accurate.

New York Focus   ·   July 29, 2025
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We live in strange times.

The rise of AI, the fall of local newspapers, the increasing willingness of politicians to bend the truth (OK, outright lie), the speed at which falsehoods spread on social media — it’s no wonder that the majority of Americans have a hard time separating fact from fiction.

New York Focus is helping to change that.

We’re partnering with Gigafact, a nonpartisan nonprofit that helps local newsrooms respond to common questions, rumors, and claims. Together, we’ll be publishing weekly “fact briefs” that provide a clear “yes” or “no” answer to the questions at hand and show the sources used to verify or debunk that claim. All in 150 words or less.

Experienced fact-checker Ferdi Ferhat Özsoy will produce weekly briefs, with claims sourced from social media, readers, and other avenues. Özsoy has spent more than a decade working to combat misinformation in both Turkey and the US, most recently as the deputy director of the International Fact-Checking Network, where he led strategic initiatives supporting more than 170 fact-checkers across more than 80 countries.

Read Özsoy’s first fact brief — published today — about whether working-class residents in New York City are fleeing faster than wealthy residents.

“One reason we launched Focus was that we kept noticing New York politicians repeating things that weren’t true — and often, no one was calling them out on it,” said Akash Mehta, editor-in-chief of New York Focus. “We’re excited to add fact briefs to our toolbox of ways to hold power to account.”

“New York Focus is doing invaluable work investigating New York’s state government, and we’re so pleased that their offerings now include fact briefs,” said Robyn Sundlee, Gigafact’s co-founder and head of operations. “This program will provide New York residents with speedy access to important and useful facts regarding their state.”

Got a claim you want us to check? Submit it via the form below.

At New York Focus, our central mission is to help readers better understand how New York really works. If you think this article succeeded, please consider supporting our mission and making more stories like this one possible.

New York is an incongruous state. We’re home to fabulous wealth — if the state were a country, it would have the tenth largest economy in the world — but also the highest rate of wealth inequality. We’re among the most diverse – but also the most segregated. We passed the nation’s most ambitious climate law — but haven’t been meeting its deadlines and continue to subsidize industries hastening the climate crisis.

As New York’s only statewide nonprofit news publication, our journalism exists to help you make sense of these contradictions. Our work scrutinizes how power works in the state, unpacks who’s really calling the shots, and reveals how obscure decisions shape ordinary New Yorkers’ lives.

In the last two decades, the number of local news outlets in New York has been nearly slashed in half, allowing elected officials and powerful individuals to increasingly operate in the dark — with the average New Yorker none the wiser.

We’re on a mission to change that. Our work has already shown what can happen when those with power know that someone is watching, with stories that have prompted policy changes and spurred legislation. We have ambitious plans for the rest of the year and beyond, including tackling new beats and more hard-hitting stories — but we need your help to make them a reality.

If you’re able, please consider supporting our journalism with a one-time gift or a monthly gift. We can't do this work without you.

Thank you,

Akash Mehta
Editor-in-Chief
A photo of Akash Mehta.