Herrero-Diz, PaulaVarona Aramburu, DavidPérez Escolar, Marta2025-01-082025-01-082024Herrero-Diz, Paula; Varona Aramburu, David; & Pérez Escolar, Marta. (2024). Debunking News as a Journalistic Genre: From the Inverted Pyramid to a Circular Writing Model. International Journal of Communication, 18, 1634–1656.1932–8036https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/113342This research identifies the common elements present in debunking news that define this sort of information as a new journalistic genre. For this purpose, after a standard literature review related to journalistic genres, fake news, fact-checking, and the state of journalism, a qualitative methodology consisting of a content analysis of 60 debunk news from politifact.com (the United States) and maldita.es (Spain) and interviews with editors (5) of the fact-checking platforms were carried out. Findings indicate a circular writing structure with common elements present in debunk news: A headline that points out and stresses the falsehood; a first paragraph that presents the origin of the disinformation; a body of the text that exposes the evidence found when analyzing the facts; and finally, a closing paragraph, that is the final verdict, that asserts whether the news is true or false, underlines the truth, and labels the credibility of the information.engAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/journal articlehttps://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21570open access007070.16070.11DebunkDesmentidoVerificaciónFact-ChekingPeriodismoJournalismJournalistic genresGéneros periodísticosCiencias de la InformaciónPeriodismo6308 Comunicaciones Sociales5910.01 Información5910.02 Medios de Comunicación de Masas5910.03 Prensa