Aaron Sharockman

Executive Director

Aaron Sharockman is the executive director of PolitiFact, and the Vice President for Sales and Strategic Partnerships at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. In his roles, Aaron oversees PolitiFact and Poynter's partnerships with newsrooms, NGOs and technology companies. Aaron is a veteran journalist having written about government and politics before joining the staff of PolitiFact in 2010 to launch PolitiFact's fact-checking program in Florida. In 2013, he created PolitiFact's project to fact-check pundits, PunditFact. He was named Executive Director of PolitiFact in 2015, where he has shepherded a period of immense growth. During his time as executive director, PolitiFact has launched more than a dozen new publishing partnerships, created a new fact-checking program in Spanish, PolitiFact en Español, and seen its staff triple in size. Aaron has more than a decade of experience reporting on and teaching mis- and disinformation tactics with a focus on empowering citizens with more accurate information, and has presented on issues of mis- and disinformation in more than 20 countries. At Poynter, Aaron develops training, teaching and publishing partnerships with newsrooms, communicators, technology companies and other organizations. Aaron is the current chair of the Board of Directors for Campus Communications, Inc., which oversees the Independent Florida Alligator, is a 2016-17 Reynolds Fellow at the University of Missouri and taught a class on political fact-checking at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He is a proud graduate of Indiana University.