There's a chapter in John McPhee's "Draft No. 4" (which is quite a time capsure of how writing was done in the last century) about the fact checking topic, and

There's a chapter in John McPhee's "Draft No. 4" (which is quite a time capsure of how writing was done in the last century) about the fact checking topic, and how much effort went into it for stories posted in The New Yorker. The amount done todays seems to be almost nil, especially when coming to a different conclusion wouldn't agree with an overarching narrative being pushed.