After the closure of ABC Fact Check, full-time journalistic fact-checkers — a novel feature of the last election — are almost entirely gone from the Australian media scene.

One of the few who remain is The Conversation’s FactCheck editor, Sunanda Creagh. Conversation founder Andrew Jaspan says given the closure of ABC Fact Check, it’s important The Conversation adds another full-time fact checker to help carry the load. Half of the $80,000 needed for another position has been raised from reader donations. Jaspan is urging more donations to make up the rest.

The Conversation’s FactCheck operates through getting an academic subject matter expert to test the validity of a claim by an influential person in a campaign, which is then sent, blind, to another expert to see if they agree. The Conversation has published 23 FactChecks this campaign.