Fact checking with Wagtail

Full Fact is a fact checking organisation. This means we fight bad information by checking claims made by politicians, personalities, media outlets and the general public in order to reduce harm and create good information environments. Essentially this means we publish a lot of content on our website - around 10,000 fact checks. In 2025 we transitioned CMS from Django Admin to Wagtail.

This talk will go through some of the limitations of Django Admin and how features in Wagtail provided solutions to them. Attendees will learn:

• How Wagtail helps websites with large content databases and a fast turnaround for editorial output.
• How Snippets help structure websites and provide better user journeys whilst helping website owners manage content and processes robustly.

Structure of the talk:

Introduction to Full Fact. What is fact checking and what website requirements are there specific to a fact checking organisation? We will talk about:

• ClaimReview meta data
• Claim sightings and post-fact check corrections
• Transparency of process

Limitations of Django Admin including:

• Publishing bottlenecks in publishing non-standard content
• User management
• Development bottlenecks

Solutions in Wagtail including:

• StreamField blocks for greater flexibility in non-standard content creation. We can give examples of how we built some of these UI components from our Bootstrap pattern library.
• User management and moderation processes
• How Snippets better refine internal processes and repurpose website content for greater visibility and user journeys for claim sightings and transparency of our own article updates and corrections.

💻 Wagtail is the easiest open-source Python CMS to use: Install the demo and start building your first site in 10 minutes: https://wagtail.org/get-started/

📹 Related Videos To Watch Next:

▶ Quick Video Tour of Wagtail CMS 7.0 https://youtu.be/r5RbV7TveFU ▶ The Latest on Wagtail AI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zfs1u4Vy5Y ▶ What’s New in Wagtail CMS 7.0 https://youtu.be/v92-6Dy4axI

Wagtail future proofs your CMS system, as it’s open source, continuously updated and built on Python, one of the most popular global programming languages, used widely in machine learning and big data. So you’re always ahead of the curve when it comes to CMS platforms.

Wagtail is the #1 choice for accessibility, is scalable and most importantly, secure.

👉 Get started with Wagtail CMS for free: https://wagtail.org/get-started/ and see how easy it is to build a website that works for you.

📊 Read why Google, NASA, and the British NHS, are powering their digital estates with Wagtail: https://wagtail.org/about-wagtail/

🎥 More Wagtail Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cne2kxemMAQ&list=PLfwZ-fob20cPvSQ_v1hkjto8BAPN21tLJ

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