Governance Body

Clara Jiménez Cruz is the co-founder and CEO of Maldita.es, a Spanish non-profit foundation created to fight disinformation and lies in public discourse. After a decade-long career as a TV journalist, Clara was appointed to the High Level Group against Disinformation by the European Commission and is a current member of the IFCN Advisory Board. Among other recognitions, she was selected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2019 and was awarded Spanish Young Journalist of the Year in 2020.

Filipe Pardal is the COO of Polígrafo, the first Portuguese fact-checking organization dedicated to fight disinformation and uncovering the truth in the public sphere. As a journalist, he worked at a national TV station and led the editorial team of a regional TV project. Filipe then served as Content Manager for a leading Portuguese tech company and took on the role of Chief of Staff to the President of the Portuguese Medical Association during the 2020-2022 term. In this capacity, he played a crucial role in navigating the complexities of communication during Covid-19 crisis.

Ana Brakus is a leading young newsroom management professional in Croatia, with years of experience in both journalism and management roles. She is the executive director and co-founder of a non-profit media organization Faktograf – Association for the Informed Public, the publisher of Croatia’s first fact-checking platform. She holds a degree in political science.

Bardhyl Jashari is Executive Director of the Metamorphosis Foundation, a non-governmental organization based in Skopje, established in 2004. Bardhyl has been instrumental in supporting the creation of several media and fact-checking outlets, fostering an independent and diverse media landscape, and establishing cooperation networks to combat disinformation in the Western Balkans. With a strong background in working with development agencies and international organizations dedicated to advancing democracy, Bardhyl has managed numerous projects aimed at enhancing government transparency, accountability, and digital and media literacy. He has implemented various initiatives focused on promoting open and transparent governance, media freedom, and social change through technology. His efforts have significantly contributed to the development of civil society and the promotion of democratic values in North Macedonia and the broader region. He holds a master’s degree from Paris 12 University-Faculty of Public Administration (France) and a degree in Information System Design from the University of Zagreb (Croatia).

Chris Morris has been the Chief Executive of Full Fact in London since October 2023, leading a team of nearly 50 people at the UK’s largest independent fact checking charity. Previously, Chris was the first dedicated fact checker on air and online at BBC News, pioneering fact checking on mainstream broadcast outlets through his development and leadership of BBC Reality Check. His work covered two general elections, post-Brexit politics, the US Presidential election, the pandemic, and the climate crisis. Before launching Reality Check, Chris spent more than two decades as a senior foreign correspondent, living and working in Europe, South Asia, the Middle East and the United States.

Kristina Hristova is the president of the Media Literacy Coalition and the director of Factcheck.bg. Kristina is one of the founders and president of the Association of European Journalists-Bulgaria in the period November 2010- September 2016. She also has a long experience as a manager and editor of European affairs in Dnevnik.bg. For her work as a journalist on European affairs, she has been awarded three times by the Representation of the European Commission in Bulgaria with the Robert Schuman Award, in the Internet media category. She graduated in International Relations in Sofia, Political Science and Political Sociology in Paris.

Marie Bohner works on development strategies to support AFP’s global digital investigation team, which takes in more than 140 journalists globally. She accompanies partnerships with the Digital Investigation’s department partners – including major social media platforms, EU institutions, as well as with peer digital investigation and fact-checking organisations in Europe and globally. Marie coordinated the award-winning CrossCheck France collaborative project, gathering more than 30 newsrooms and tech partners to tackle disinformation during the French Presidential Election in 2017. She did so on behalf of First Draft, and was their Global Head of Partnerships until 2021. She’s currently based in France.

Stefan Voss is the head of verification at the German news agency dpa. He has been working for the Deutsche Presse-Agentur for over 20 years, including more than a decade as a foreign correspondent in Ukraine and Russia. Since 2017 Stefan has built up a team of verification experts in dpa’s Berlin newsroom. He is also the founder of dpa’s fact-checking team (which now employs around 30 journalists). For many years Stefan has been active as a Social Media trainer for journalists both in Germany and internationally. His specialities include digital research, verification and deep-fake recognition.

Thomas Hedin has been a driving force in the creation and development of the Danish fact-checking media TjekDet, since it was established in 2016 by a commercial media company. He was initially a senior editor, but in 2020 took over as editor-in-chief and CEO, when TjekDet changed its legal status to an independent nonprofit organisation. He has been prime mover on several projects focusing on combating misinformation and disinformation – both in the context of education and research – and he regularly participates as a speaker in seminars and debates. He was a researcher and later editorial manager for nearly ten years at the national Danish public-service broadcaster DR – first at the radio news department and later at the DR TV news. In 2007 he became an editor of a journalistic research department at Denmark’s oldest newspaper, Berlingske. In 2015, he switched to the Danish weekly magazine Mandag Morgen, which can best be compared to the American magazine The Economist, where he was hired as a data journalist.

Tommaso Canetta is the Deputy director of Pagella Politica and Facta news since 2020, fact-checker since 2016 and professional journalist since 2012 and mainly deals with European and international projects involving. In particular, he coordinates the fact-checking activities of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) and the Italian Digital Media Observatory (IDMO) and is a member of the Taskforce of the Code of Practice on Disinformation of the European Union. He holds a Master’s degree in Law, with a specialisation in European and international law, and a 2nd level university Master’s degree in Journalism.

Vincent Couronne has been a journalist since 2017, the year he founded Les Surligneurs, the first legal fact-checking media outlet. As the director of publication of Les Surligneurs, he has supervised the publication of all the articles, recruited teams, managed both national and European projects, given conferences on fact-checking. He is also a legal researcher at Versailles University and lecturer, specialised in EU law. He is also a member of the Stakeholder Committee of the largest legal publishing house in Europe.

Andrew Dudfield has led Full Fact’s artificial intelligence team since 2019, developing technology to tackle misinformation at internet scale by serving the needs of fact checkers around the world. He was previously the Chief Publishing Officer of the UK Office for National Statistics and prior to that spent a decade working in product and technology roles at the BBC.

Carlos Hernández-Echevarría is an Associate Director at nonprofit Fundación Maldita.es, which he joined in 2020 to lead its public policy and advocacy operation. He works with public and private institutions to formulate, evaluate, and advocate for more effective policy solutions against disinformation. He is also a member of the Permanent Task Force of the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation. In the past, he was part of the EDMO Task Force on Disinformation on the War in Ukraine.

Before joining Maldita.es, Carlos worked in TV news for 15 years as a reporter, correspondent and executive producer. He has a BA in Journalism and a MA in Elections and Campaign Management as a Fulbright Scholar. He is a contributor for several Spanish Media and a professor at Universidad Carlos III.

Dafina Kandova graduated in social sciences from the University Louis Lumière in Lyon, where her research focused on social networks and digital memory. She has been part of the Factcheck.bg team since September 2023 and became editor in October 2024. Dafina is fluent in Bulgarian, English, and French.

Jelena Berković works on analysis and advocacy of public policies in Faktograf. Previously, she served as the executive director of Gong and practiced journalism at Radio 101, Student Paper REVOLT and other media in Croatia, receiving the “Marija Jurić Zagorka” award. She graduated Journalism at Zagreb University and Global Politics at LSE.

Julie Charpentrat leads AFP’s Global Digital Investigation team. She joined the Digital Investigations team in 2019 as fact-checker in charge of Health topics before becoming Deputy Editor-in-chief. She worked as business correspondant, in AFP New York and San Francisco bureaus, and also previously worked as a video journalist in Paris.

Nelly Pailleux is Chief Operations Officer at Les Surligneurs. She oversees the organization’s development, driving strategic initiatives to expand its impact in the fight against disinformation and to safeguard democracies. Former journalist she led investigations into disinformation, with a focus on the role of recommendation algorithms on social media. With valuable experience in successful European projects, she is committed to innovating in the fight against disinformation.

Salomé Leal is a portuguese journalist. She joined Polígrafo at the end of 2020, just before the presidential elections, and has been working in the Politics section ever since. She graduated in Communication from the University of Minho. She authors the “Pinóquio” newsletter on Fridays and is the executive editor of Polígrafo.