Fergus Bell

co-founder and CEO Fathm

Fergus Bell is CEO and co-founder of fathm.

He is an experienced journalist, editor and leading expert in digital newsgathering, verification, newsroom innovation and collaborative journalism projects. Fergus’ experience spans both the business and editorial sides of the news industry.

He spent eight years as a journalist and producer at the Associated Press, where he became their first International Social Media and UGC Editor. He then headed up newsroom partnerships and innovation for digital newsgathering start-up, SAM Desk. In 2015 Fergus founded Dig Deeper Media - advising broadcasters, publishers and start-ups on social and digital newsgathering, newsroom transformation and innovation. In 2017 he co-founded Pop-Up Newsroom, a framework for collaborative journalism projects that has already seen success in the US, UK, India, Sweden and with the multi-award winning "Verificado" - an initiative designed to monitor for misinformation during the Mexican elections.

Fergus is a member of the Online News Association’s Board of Directors.

Read More

#IJF15 / 16 april 2015

Social media verification tools

As news events break, newsrooms need the ability to contextualize and verify reports, photos and videos from social media channels. We’ll discuss some simple tools to help journalists verify infor...