The Washington Post has developed a prototype of a news application that could be used to fact-check live speeches and debates. The app is called Truth Teller, and it was built with funding from the Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund. 

According to the paper’s executive producer for digital news, Cory Haik, the project was inspired by politics editor Steven Ginsberg’s visit to a Michele Bachmann rally in August 2011, where the politician repeatedly misled her audience. Ginsberg realized that nobody in attendance seemed to be know they were being misled, and thus the idea to create a real time fact checking device was born.