FACTA is an independent Italian non-profit media outlet that applies the scientific method to investigative and data journalism.

Science-based journalism for democracy. This is our mission: promoting the democratic process through independent investigative journalism built on science. We strongly believe rigorous, transparent, open science public interest journalism can help better inform the public debate and build scientific citizenship. 

It is not just a matter of holding scientific knowledge. Scientific citizenship is about making informed decisions. Science shapes the most pressing challenges we face today, from the climate crisis to public health, from technology to sustainability. That’s why being scientifically informed is a democratic process - and our goal is to give our contribution reporting on scientific topics deeply connected to people's lives.

We are a passionate group of journalists who firmly believe that good science journalism can be a powerful tool for democracy. We have strong expertise in science and data journalism, multimedia production, data analysis and visualisations.

We live and work in Italy, a country with enormous political, environmental, and social issues. And where independent information is at risk. The Italian media landscape is controlled by a handful of powerful private groups, frequently caught up in conflicts of interest. Public broadcasting is under the sway of political influence. The climate crisis finds very little coverage in legacy media, while fossil fuel companies are the biggest advertisers in major national newspapers. 

For this reason, our work is to provide our community with rigorous, evidence-based, independent public interest journalism, crucial for informed decision-making in an era of misinformation. Adopting a clear and transparent method, our team combines data analysis, community engagement, field reporting and digital tools to cover interconnected topics where science directly impacts local communities in our country. You will find investigations on climate, environment, ecology, sustainability and health, starting from real and often underreported problems. 

Our investigations would not be possible without an engaged audience that reads our stories and especially suggests how to improve our work. We have a strong core community of researchers, students, teachers, local administrations, NGOs, activists, and civil society organisations. Many of them contribute to our reporting process, giving feedback on the hypothesis, the data and the results of our investigations.

Part of our community (especially researchers, NGOs, and activists) use English as their working language - that’s why this website is currently mainly in English at the moment, even though all the stories are available both in English and Italian. In fact, the rest of our community, in particular revolving around school and local administrations, uses Italian more.

And, overall, the national and local dimension is the focus of our investigations: we work in areas we know very well and connect with people of our territories. So all our articles are originally published in Italian, on FACTA or in syndication with national outlets to amplify impact. And we have a newsletter to keep our Italian community updated on our work and investigations. Available only in italian, for now - you can subscribe here. 

We are working to have all the content available in double languages soon. 

We believe that collaboration is at the core of good journalism. That’s why we constantly seek knowledge exchange, both at the editorial and non-editorial level.

We are members of the Reference Media Circle, a self-organised, European network of 24 independent media collectively advocating for the well-being and financial sustainability of independent, public interest media.

We are also members of EDJNet, a network of media and data journalists from all over Europe.

At the national level, we are building collaborations and partnerships with other Italian independent media organisations that face same challenges and have similar goals, in order to raise the voice of independent, public interest journalism in Italy.

FACTA is fully committed to transparency, both at the editorial and non-editorial level. We sign up and adopt the Reference Media Circle Transparency Code, granting organisational transparency and editorial responsibility.

We adhere to the principles of public interest journalism and to the Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists.

Overall, sources of revenues come from a mix of journalism grants (70%), syndication and partnership with media, editorial companies, civic organisations and research institutes (20%), and training and consultancy (10%). 

You can download FACTA’s latest financial reports and annual reports.